STUDIES 


IN 


MEDIEVAL    HISTORY. 


BY 

CHARLES  J.  STILLS,  LL.D., 

LATE     PROVOST    OF     THE     UNIVERSITY     OP     PENNSYLVANIA. 


SECOND    EDITION. 


PHILADELPHIA: 
J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT   COMPANY. 

LONDON:    10  HENRIETTA  ST.,  COVENT   GARDEN. 
1888. 


Copyright,  1382  and  1883,  by  CHARLES  J.  STILL*. 


TO  THE  HONOEABLE 

J.  I.  CLAKK  HAKE,  LLJX, 

PRESIDENT  JUDGE  OF  THE  COURT  OF  COMMON  PLEAS  No.  2, 

PROFESSOR  OF  THE  INSTITUTES  OF  LAW 

IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA, 

ETC.,  ETC. 


MY  DEAR  HARE  : 

I  was  chosen  a  teacher  of  History  in  the  University 
chiefly  because  you  and  another  friend  (of  whom,  alas ! 
only  the  precious  memory  is  now  left  us)  expressed 
confidence  in  my  capacity  to  perform  the  duties  of  that 
position.  During  the  many  years  I  held  the  office,  I 
was  not  unmindful  that  you  had  been  in  some  sort  my 
sponsor;  and,  now  that  I  have  laid  it  down,  I  am 
prompted  by  a  grateful  remembrance  of  your  unfailing 
kindness,  and  our  long-unbroken  friendship,  to  dedicate 
this  book  to  you.  It  may  interest  you,  for  it  contains 
some  of  the  results  of  the  work  which  you  did  so  much 
to  impose  upon  me. 

"With  the  highest  regard, 

Faithfully  yours, 

C.  J.  STILLS, 

JANUARY,  1882. 


PEEFAOE. 


MY  object  in  preparing  these  "  Studies"  has  been  to 
illustrate  the  life  of  the  Middle  Age  by  a  sketch  of  some 
of  its  characteristic  institutions.  I  have  selected  those 
prominent  features  in  that  life  which  it  inherited  from 
Roman  and  Christian  society  before  the  extinction  of  the 
Western  Empire  in  476,  and  which  were  moulded  and 
shaped  after  that  event  by  the  peculiar  ideas  and  habits 
of  the  barbarian  invaders. 

My  experience  as  a  teacher  has  convinced  me  that  to 
the  genuine  student  the  unbroken  continuity  of  history 
is  its  most  attractive  and  instructive  feature,  and  that  so 
far  as  the  Middle  Age  is  concerned  the  most  important 
lesson  which  its  history  teaches  us  is  that,  while  it  was 
mainly  the  outgrowth  of  a  previous  condition,  it  was 
also  the  source  of  much  that  is  most  valuable  in  our 
modern  life  and  civilization. 

These  "  Studies"  are  based  upon  a  course  of  lectures 
— one  of  a  series — which  it  became  my  duty  to  give 
in  the  University.  They  formed  part  of  a  scheme  of 
systematic  instruction  in  history  in  which  my  design 
was  to  indicate  the  "general  stream  of  tendency"  of 
historical  events  in  Europe  during  the  Christian  era. 


vi  PREFACE. 

I  have  been  requested  by  my  old  pupils  to  publish 
these  lectures.  Before  doing  so,  however,  I  have  thought 
it  best  to  remodel  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  to  rewrite 
them,  so  as  to  give  them  the  form  of  general  "  studies" 
on  the  subject. 

I  may  add  that  some  knowledge  of  historical  geog- 
raphy is  very  necessary  to  a  full  understanding  of  many 
of  the  questions  which  I  have  discussed  in  the  following 
pages.  The  recent  work  of  Mr.  FREEMAN  on  this  sub- 
ject, and  especially  the  maps  appended  to  it,  or  the  his- 
torical atlases  of  VON  SPEUNER  or  of  LABBEETON,  will 
be  found  very  useful  for  that  purpose. 

In  the  Appendix  will  be  found  a  list  of  the  principal 
authorities  which  I  have  consulted  in  preparing  this 
work. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 


A  SECOND  edition  of  this  book  having  been  called 
for,  the  text  has  been  revised  and  corrected,  the  Index 
enlarged,  and  various  other  changes  have  been  made. 

It  is  a  cause  of  sincere  satisfaction  to  the  author  to 
find  that  his  work  has  proved  useful  to  those  for  whom 
it  was  specially  designed — that  large  and  increasing 
class,  both  in  our  colleges  and  outside  of  them,  who  are 
pursuing  advanced  studies  in  history,  and  who  are  par- 
ticularly desirous  of  acquainting  themselves  with  the 
results  of  the  latest  investigations  concerning  the  some- 
what unfamiliar  features  of  the  life  of  the  Middle  Age. 

MAY,  1883. 


OOJSTTE^TTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  ERA. 

PAOB 

The  Importance  of  Middle  Age  History         ....  13 

Eoman  Elements  therein,  and  their  Assimilation  ...  16 

The  Characteristics  of  the  Barbarians 20 

Their  Permanent  Occupation  of  the  Koman  Territory .        .  23 

Contrast  between  Koman  and  Christian  Ideas       ...  26 

Early  Church  Organization 28 

Organization  of  the  Imperial  Government    ....  33 

Eoman  Kule  in  the  Provinces 37 

Superscription  of  Pilate 39 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  BARBARIANS  AND   THEIR  INVASIONS. 

Conflict  of  Koman  and  Teutonic  Ideas 41 

Characteristics  of  the  Invaders 42 

Nature  of  the  Invasions  of  the  Empire         ....  60 

The  Barbarian  Ideas  brought  into  its  Life     ....  63 

Growing  Power  of  the  Church 65 

Suppression  of  Arianism  in  the  West 57 

Conquests  of  the  Franks,  and  Baptism  of  Clovis  ...  68 

Relations  of  the  Church  to  the  Frankish  Kings    ...  63 

Conversion  of  the  Northern  Tribes 65 

ix 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  FRANKISH  CONQUESTS  AND  CHARLEMAGNE. 

PAGE 

Boundaries  of  the  Frankish  Kingdom 71 

The  Merovingians 73 

The  Family  of  Charlemagne 75 

The  Popes  and  the  Franks 79 

Coronation  of  Charlemagne,  and  the  Theory  of  the  Holy 

Koman  Empire  .  .82 

Charlemagne's  Conquests        .......  85 

His  Characteristics  as  a  Conqueror,  Legislator,  and  Patron 

of  Learning 87 

The  Charlemagne  of  History  and  of  Legend  ...  94 

Failure  of  his  Schemes 95 

CHAPTER  IV. 

MOHAMMED  AND  HIS  SYSTEM. 

Mohammedanism  as  a  Force  in  Mediaeval  History        .        .  98 

The  Arab  Tribes — their  Keligion  and  Commerce  .         .         .  103 

Weakness  of  the  Empire  in  the  Time  of  Mohammed    .        .  107 

Christian  and  Heretical  Sects 109 

Decay  of  Discipline  in  the  Roman  Army       ....  Ill 

Mohammed's  Early  Life  and  Doctrines          ....  113 

The  Conversion  of  the  Arab  Tribes 119 

The  Theory  of  Armed  Propagandism 121 

Conquests  of  the  Saracens 125 

CHAPTER  V. 

MEDIEVAL   FRANCE. 

The  Degeneracy  of  the  Descendants  of  Charlemagne   .        .130 

The  Treaty  of  Partition  at  Verdun 133 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

The  Characteristics  of  the  Feudal  System     ....  135 

Invasion  of  the  Northmen     .                  145 

Services  of  the  Family  of  Capet 146 

Hugh  Capet  elected  King  of  France 147 

English  Kings  Feudal  Lords  in  France         ....  149 

The  Freedom  of  the  Towns 151 

Feudalism  during  the  Hundred-Tears'  War         .        .        .153 

The  Work  of  Jeanne  d'Arc 155 

Ahsorption  of  Fiefs,  and  their  Annexation  to  the  Crown     .  157 


CHAPTER  VI. 

GERMANY,  FEUDAL  AND  IMPERIAL. 

Different  Kesults  of  Feudalism  in  France  and  Germany       .  160 

Extinction  of  the  Descendants  of  Charlemagne    .        .        .  161 
The  Six  Principal  Duchies  at  that  Time        .         .         .         .161 

Henry  of  Saxony  chosen  King — his  Work    ....  163 

The  Influence  of  Towns  on  German  Life       ....  167 

Three  Dynasties  of  Kings  and  Roman  Emperors           .         .  164 

Eelations  of  the  Emperors  to  the  Popes         ....  170 

Henry  IV.  and  Hildebrand — Investitures      ....  177 

Hohenstauffen  Emperors  and  the  Lombard  League       .         .  179 

Italian  Politics  the  Ruin  of  Germany 181 

Kudolph  of  Hapsburg  and  his  Dynasty         ....  181 

The  Kesults  of  Decentralization 187 

CHAPTER  VII. 

SAXON  AND  DANISH  ENGLAND. 

Historical  Basis  of  English  Life 189 

American  Interest  in  English  History  .....  191 

Roman  Occupation  of  th«  Country 193 

The  Anglo-Saxons,  and  their  Characteristics  in  Germany    .  199 


CONTENTS. 


The  Anglo-Saxon  Classes  and  Organization  . 
Danish  Invasions,  and  Subsequent  Fusion  of  Kaces 
Christianity  and  the  Church  in  England 
Kelations  of  the  Church  to  the  Monarch — Dunstan 


CHAPTEE  VIII. 

ENGLAND  AFTER  THE  NORMAN  CONQUEST 

The  National  Life  as  affected  in  Four  Different  Ways  .        .  217 
The  Feudal  System  as  established  by  the  Conqueror     .        .219 

Kule  of  the  Norman  Kings 221 

King  John — Magna  Charta 223 

Simon  de  Montfort  and  the  House  of  Commons   .        .        .  227 

Policy  of  the  Norman  Kings  towards  the  Church         .         .  229 

Discontent  in  England  in  the  Fourteenth  Century        .        .  233 

The  Hundred-Years'  War  in  France 235 

Anglo-Norman  Life  in  England 237 

The  Towns  and  the  Gildes 239 

Condition  of  the  People,  and  the  Labor  Question         .        .  241 

Powers  of  the  House  of  Commons 245 

CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  PAPACY  TO  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLEMAGNE. 

The  Nature  of  the  Papal  Eule 251 

Church  Organization  and  its  Growth 253 

The  Supremacy  of  Home 257 

The  Popes  during  the  Invasions 261 

The  Theory  of  the  Church's  Power 264 

Greatness  of  the  Early  Popes        .        .        .        .                 .  267 

The  Church's  Visibility  and  Unity 271 

Mediaeval  Bishops  and  the  Popes 273 

Cosmopolitan  Spirit  of  the  Papacy 274 


CONTENTS.  xiii 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  EMPIRE. 

PAGE 

Theory  of  the  World-Monarchy  and  the  "World-Keligion    .  277 

Charlemagne's  Relations  to  the  Pope 280 

Hildebrand  and  his  Theocratic  Ideas 283 

Simony  and  the  Marriage  of  the  Clergy        ....  286 

The  War  of  the  Investitures 288 

Relative  Position  of  Henry  IV.  and  Gregory  VII.       .        .  289 

Claims  of  the  Later  Mediaeval  Popes 294 

"The  Babylonian  Captivity,"  and  the  Great  Schism    .        .  299 

The  Council  of  Constance 301 

The  Popes  as  Italian  Princes 303 

CHAPTER  XL 

THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  ITALIAN  NATIONALITY. 

The  Sentiment  of  Nationality  in  the  Teutonic  Races    .         .  305 

Italy  the  Special  Prey  of  the  Invaders 309 

The  Lombard  Invasion  and  the  Popes 311 

The  Frankish  Conquest  and  its  Effect 313 

The  Lombard  League — Guelphs  and  Ghibelines    .        .        .  315 

Frederick  II.  and  the  Popes 317 

The  City  Republics  and  their  Prosperity        ....  319 

The  Tyrants  of  the  Towns— Condottieri        ....  323! 

Tyranny  and  Culture  combined  in  the  Italian  Prince  .         .  329i 

Italian  Dynasties  at  the  Close  of  the  Fifteenth  Century       .  331 

CHAPTER  XII. 

MONASTICISM,  CHIVALRY,  AND  THE  CRUSADES. 

Indirect  Influences  in  History 333 

Rise  and  Growth  of  Monasticism  .                                  .        .  335 


xiv  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

St.  Benedict  and  the  Order  of  Benedictines  ....  337 

St.  Bernard  and  his  Work 340 

St.  Dominic  and  the  Order  of  Friar  Preachers       .         .         .  342 

St.  Francis  and  the  Order  of  Minorites  or  Franciscans  .         .  344 

Chivalry  and  the  Mediaeval  Knight 347 

How  the  Church  trained  him  for  her  Service         .         .         .  348 

The  Point  of  Honor 351 

The  Crusades 353 

The  War  against  the  Albigenses 355 

The  Crusaders  in  Spain  ....         ....  357 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

SCHOLASTIC  PHILOSOPHY — THE   SCHOOLMEN — UNIVERSITIES. 

The  Imperial  Methods  of  Education  adopted  by  the  Church  361 

Cathedral  and  Monastic  Schools 363 

Alcuin  and  the  Palace  School  of  Charlemagne      .         .         .  364 

Influence  of  the  Palace  School       ......  367 

The  Scholastic  Philosophy  and  the  Schoolmen       .         .         .  370 

Controversy  about  TIniversals — Nominalists  and  Realists     .  374 

The  University  of  Paris  and  its  Organization        .         .        .  376 

The  University  of  Bologna— Civil  and  Canon  Law      .        .  380 

The  Study  of  Medicine 383 

The  Effect  of  Physical  Investigations 384 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  LABORING  CLASSES  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGE. 

The  Industrial  Classes  in  Antiquity  and  in  Modern  Times   .  385 

The  Source  of  the  Contempt  for  Labor  in  Antiquity     .         .  387 

The  Mechanic  Arts  and  Trade  in  the  Roman  Empire    .         .  388 

Collegia — Conflict  between  Free  and  Slave  Labor         .        .  390 

The  First  Effect  of  the  Invasions  on  the  Laboring  Class       .  391 


CONTENTS.  xv 


PAGE 

Causes  of  the  Gradual  Abolition  of  Villenage      .        .        .  393 

Effect  of  Fixed  Services 395 

The  Laboring  Class  in  the  Free  Towns — Trade  Corporations  397 

Organization  of  the  Gildes  or  Confreries        ....  400 

The  Exactions  after  the  Freedom  from  Feudal  Service          .  408 
Contrast  between  the  History  of  England  and  that  of  France 

with  reference  to  the  Labor  Question      ....  409 


CHAPTER  XV. 

MEDIAEVAL  COMMERCE. 

Movement  characteristic  of  Civilization        ....  412 

Difference  between  Oriental  and  European  Civilization         .  415 

Isolation  of  the  Middle  Age — Causes  and  Kesults         .        .  417 

Roman  Commerce,  and  its  Influence  on  Koman  Life    .         .  419 

Commercial  History  of  Italian  Towns  .....  424 

Commerce  and  the  Crusades 427 

The  Hanseatic  League 429 

Humanizing  Influences  of  Mediasval  Commerce   .         .         .  435 

Commerce  and  the  Church 436 

Rise  of  International  Kelations  due  to  Commerce         .        .  439 


CHAPTEE  XVI. 

THE   ERA  OF  SECULARIZATION. 

Conflict  between  Authority  and  Individualism      .         .         .  441 

Nature  and  Extent  of  the  Church  Authority         .         .         .  443 

The  Nation  and  the  Church 445 

National  Ideas  supplant  Ecclesiastical  .    ^.        .        .        .  447 

Position  of  the  Popes  in  the  Later  Middle  Age     .        .        .  451 

Increase  of  Worldliness  and  Luxurious  Living     .         .         .  453 

Inventions  and  Maritime  Discoveries 457 


xvi  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Commercial  Interests  and  National  Policy    ....     459 
Popular  Discontents 461 

APPENDIX 435 

INDEX  ,    469 


MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  ERA. 

THAT  pericxj  of  the  world's  history  embraced  be- 
tween the  date  of  the  downfall  of  the  Western  Roman 
Empire  in  476  and  the  conquest  of  Constantinople  by 
the  Ottoman  Turks  in  1453  is  commonly  known  as 
mediaeval  or  Middle  Age  history.  It  is  so  called, 
doubtless,  because  it  is  supposed  to  occupy  the  inter- 
mediate space,  at  least  in  Western  Europe,  between 
ancient  and  modern  history,  and  because  it  marks  the 
period  of  transition  from  the  one  to  the  other.  This 
period  may  be  studied  either  as  a  most  curious  and  in- 
teresting epoch  in  the  world's  history,  in  itself  wholly 
unlike  that  of  any  age  which  preceded  or  followed  it, 
or  we  may  investigate  it  as  the  true  groundwork  of 
modern  history,  regarding  a  knowledge  of  its  teachings 
as  an  essential  introduction  to  a  correct  understanding 
of  the  great  principles  which  underlie  our  modern  civ- 
ilization. The  Middle  Age  was  both  a  period  of  transi- 
tion and  of  a  formative  process,  when  the  forces  which 

govern  our  modern  life  were  slowly  crystallizing.     For 

2  13 


14  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

students  of  the  general  principles  of  modern  history 
the  chief  interest  in  the  history  of  the  Middle  Age  lies 
in  its  being  what  may  be  called  seed-time,  or  the  stage 
of  the  early  development  of  those  ideas  of  religion, 
government,  society,  laws,  and  manners  the  full  fruition 
and  bloom  of  which  we  witness  in  our  own  days.  What 
such  students  desire  chiefly  to  know  about  it  is  not  so 
much  what  was  curious  or  picturesque  and  specially 
characteristic  of  life  as  it  was  then  lived  in  Western 
Europe,  as  what  there  was  permanent  in  it,  and  how  it 
was  inwoven  in  the  framework  of  modern  life,  thus 
forming  an  act  of  that  great  drama  of  human  history  in 
which  retribution  is  the  law,  opinion  the  chief  mould- 
ing agency,  and  the  advancement  of  the  human  race  the 
denouement  and  final  result.  We  propose  here  to  study 
the  Middle  Age,  not  as  antiquarians,  but  as  historians, — 
in  other  words,  with  reference  to  the  influence  of  its  life 
upon  that  of  succeeding  ages. 

If  we  begin  to  study  mediaeval  history  with  this 
object,  we  soon  discover  that  we  cannot  understand  the 
nature  and  historical  character  of  its  peculiar  develop- 
ment until  we  trace  the  beginnings  of  its  history  back 
to  sources  beyond  the  period  which  I  have  assigned  to 
the  beginning  of  medieval  history  proper, — that  is, 
the  extinction  of  the  Western  Roman  Empire  in  476. 
These  sources  we  shall  find  in  the  characteristic  life  of 
the  barbarians  in  their  native  forests,  and  in  the  laws, 
religion,  and  government  of  Imperial  Rome,  not  only 
while  she  was  mistress  of  the  world,  but  also  during 


GENERAL  ASPECT  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGE.   15 

that  long  period  of  decline  and  decay  in  which  the  op- 
posing forces  of  Christianity  and  barbarism  were  slowly 
changing  her  life  and  moulding  her  system  for  its  new 
destinies,  preparing  her  to  rule  the  world  by  her  laws, 
as  she  had  once  done  by  her  arms.  The  general  view 
of  the  Middle  Age  would  be  that  of  a  stream  fed  from 
distant  sources,  at  first  a  torrent,  bursting  from  the 
forests  of  Germany,  sweeping  onward,  so  violent  in  its 
fury  and  so  overwhelming  in  its  force  as  for  a  time  to 
destroy  all  trace  of  the  work  of  civilized  man,  and  then, 
long  after,  reappearing,  swollen  by  its  tributaries,  as  a 
mighty  river,  bearing  upon  its  placid  and  ample  bosom 
blessings  of  peace  and  comfort  to  those  who  dwell  upon 
its  shores. 

Again,  the  general  aspect  of  Europe  during  the  Middle 
Age  is  that  of  a  violent  conflict,  a  struggle,  not  merely 
between  the  barbarian  tribes  and  the  legions  of  Impe- 
rial Rome,  and  of  these  tribes  with  each  other,  but  also 
a  constant  struggle  of  opposing  ideas  for  the  mastery,  of 
the  Teuton  against  the  Roman,  of  the  North  of  Europe 
against  the  South,  of  Christianity  against  heathenism, 
of  a  savagery  which  has  been  compared  to  that  of  the 
North  American  Indians  with  the  highest  form  of  civili- 
zation then  known  to  the  world.  In  the  midst  of  such 
terrible  birth-throes  modern  civilization  is  brought  into 
the  world,  and,  unlike  any  other  civilization  in  history, 
it  owes  its  peculiarities  and  its  characteristic  strength 
to  this  violent  conflict  of  opposing  forces  of  which  it  is 
the  resultant. 


16  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

All  this  will  appear  more  fully  as  we  study  the  special 
development  of  the  mediaeval  history.  What  we  must 
first  do  is  to  consider  the  forces  which  thus  struggled 
for  the  mastery,  examine  their  nature  and  relative 
strength,  their  origin  and  historical  development,  and 
then  we  can  better  describe  their  conflict  and  final 
fusion  with  each  other.  These  forces,  for  our  purpose, 
may  be  considered  as  derived  from  two  sources,  Roman 
and  barbarian  life. 

The  four  most  powerful  and  active  elements  of  me- 
diaeval society  which  were  derived  directly  from  the 
Roman  civilization  are — 1,  organized  Christianity,  or 
the  Church ;  2,  the  Roman  organization  and  adminis- 
tration ;  3,  the  Roman  civil  law  as  it  relates  to  the 
rights  of  persons  and  property ;  4,  the  general  use  of 
the  Latin  language.  These  are  some  of  the  seeds  which 
Rome  sowed  in  mediaeval  soil,  and  which  have  brought 
forth  fruit  abundantly  ever  since,  both  for  good  and  for 
evil.  To  estimate  the  nature  of  the  seed  aright,  we 
must  first  trace  the  history  of  its  growth  on  Roman 
soil.  This  process  will  carry  us  in  our  search  for  the 
beginnings  of  mediaeval  history  much  farther  back,  as 
I  have  said,  than  the  period  of  the  downfall  of  the 
Western  Empire  in  476.  We  must,  for  instance,  if 
we  wish  to  comprehend  the  nature  of  the  paramount 
influence  of  Christianity  in  the  history  of  the  Middle 
Age,  study  the  reign  of  Constantine  (306-337),  when 
what  had  been  previously  only  the  proscribed  creed  of 
a  few  obscure  fishermen  became  a  powerful  organization 


PECULIAR  INFLUENCES  OF  ROME.          17 

in  the  Empire,  the  official  religion  of  the  Roman  world, 
and  its  clergy  shared  in  the  power  and  majesty  wielded 
by  the  Imperial  Csesar. 

In  the  age  of  Constantine,  too,  the  theory  of  Roman 
civil  organization  and  government  had  reached  its 
fullest  development.  The  long  peace  which  resulted 
from  the  adhesion  by  the  Antouines  to  the  policy  of 
Augustus  of  refusing  to  extend  the  boundaries  of  the 
Empire,  and  which  had  been  interrupted  only  by  the 
successful  efforts  of  his  successors  to  repel  the  first  in- 
vasions of  the  barbarians,  had  been  favorable  to  the  full 
development  of  what  was  characteristic  in  the  Roman 
system  of  government.  We  must,  at  the  outset  of  the 
inquiry,  disabuse  ourselves  of  the  impression,  which 
is  a  very  natural  one,  that  only  what  was  good  in  the 
Roman  system  survived  and  helped  the  progress  of 
civilization  in  succeeding  ages.  That  portion  of  Ro- 
man history  which  fills  the  space  between  the  reign 
of  the  Emperor  Constantine  and  the  downfall  of  the 
Empire  in  476  is,  as  far  as  the  preservation  of  the 
Roman  Imperial  system  itself  is  concerned,  a  record 
of  constantly  progressive  decay,  feebleness,  and  corrup- 
tion, ending  finally  in  the  absolute  exhaustion  of  the 
Empire ;  and  yet  this  very  period  is  the  one  most  fruit- 
ful in  those  influences  which,  in  later  ages  and  under 
different  surroundings,  have  been  most  potent  in  shaping 
the  course  of  history.  Republican  Rome  had  little  to 
do,  either  by  precept  or  example,  with  the  modern  life 

of  Europe,  Imperial  Rome  everything.     The  Middle 

2* 


18  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

Age  was  built  on  its  ruins.  What  then  was  there  in 
this  mighty  system,  from  the  time  of  the  Emperor 
Constantine  until  its  organization  was  destroyed  by  the 
permanent  occupation  of  the  soil  by  the  barbarians, 
which  has  left  so  ineffaceable  a  mark  upon  the  history 
of  mediaeval  and  modern  Europe?  What  were  the 
boundaries  of  the  Empire,  what  was  the  character  of 
its  population,  and  what  was  its  governing  policy,  when 
its  power  began  to  crumble  before  the  fierce  assaults  of 
the  barbarian  tribes  ? 

The  limits  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  Europe  were 
bounded,  as  is  well  known,  by  the  course  of  the  great 
rivers  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube.  This  frontier  had 
been  deliberately  settled  upon  by  the  far-seeing  policy 
of  Augustus  and  of  Trajan.  The  policy  which  estab- 
lished it  was  only  the  expression  of  a  sentiment  uni- 
versal among  Roman  statesmen  at  all  times, — that  the 
only  real  danger  to  the  perpetuity  of  the  Empire  was 
the  possibility  of  the  invasion  of  its  territory  by  the 
wild  tribes  on  the  other  side  of  these  rivers.  They 
were  regarded,  naturally,  as  the  most  formidable  bar- 
riers which  could  be  interposed  against  such  invasions. 
For  nearly  five  hundred  years  this  frontier,  guarded 
by  the  larger  portion  of  the  military  force  of  the 
Empire,  served  to  preserve  its  territory,  if  not  always 
from  invasion,  at  least  from  permanent  occupation, 
while  the  provinces  on  the  Roman  side  of  this  frontier 
were  carrying  out,  in  entire  unconsciousness  of  danger, 
to  its  fullest  development,  whatever  was  good  or  evil 


SYMPTOMS  OF  DECA  Y.  19 

. 

in  the  Roman  Imperial  system.  The  population  of  the 
provinces  capable  of  military  duty  was  diminishing 
year  by  year ;  slavery  had  destroyed  all  development  of 
trade  and  commerce  and  the  means  of  recruiting  the 
armies;  the  soil  was  cultivated  by  slaves  only,  and 
brought  forth  little;  latifundia,  or  sheep  pastures,  took 
the  place  of  farms  cultivated  by  free  laborers;  the 
exactions  of  the  tax-gatherers  for  Imperial  purposes 
became  each  year  more  severe  and  oppressive,  and  the 
result  was  not  merely  the  decay  of  industry,  but  a  con- 
stantly decreasing  -population,  while  the  soil  no  longer 
produced  enough  to  nourish  it  in  full  vigor. 

From  these  and  a  variety  of  similar  causes  it  is  evi- 
dent that  the  canker-worm  was  at  the  root  of  Roman 
society ;  and  yet  the  rulers  of  the  Empire,  heedless  of 
the  ruin  that  was  threatening  them  at  their  own  doors, 
could  see  no  danger  for  the  future,  save  in  the  black 
cloud  which  hung  on  the  northeastern  horizon. 

The  Empire  during  all  this  time  was  never,  to  a  super- 
ficial observer,  more  prosperous.  The  province  of  Gaul, 
for  instance,  separated  from  those  who  coveted  its  terri- 
tory and  envied  its  civilization  only  by  the  river  Rhine, 
was,  during  the  first  four  centuries  of  the  Christian  era, 
in  as  flourishing  a  condition  as  any  portion  of  the  Empire. 
The  highly  elaborate  administration  of  the  Roman  law 
was  everywhere  in  full  vigor  in  the  three  Gauls,  and  its 
system  of  organization  was  so  well  adapted  to  its  ends 
that  it  worked  as  smoothly  among  the  wild  Celts  whom 
Caesar  had  subdued  as  if  it  had  governed  a  proviilce 


20  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

at  the  gates  of  Rome.  The  country  was  filled  with 
flourishing  cities  (not  less  than  one  hundred  and  sixteen 
in  number  from  the  river  Scheldt  to  the  Mediterranean), 
— not  merely  military  posts  on  the  frontier,  like  Treves 
(Augusta  Trevirorum),  Cologne  (Colonia  Agrippina),  and 
Coblentz,  for  instance,  but  cities  such  as  Bordeaux, 
Toulouse,  Marseilles,  Lyons,  Vienne,  Aries,  Nimes,  and 
many  others,  in  which  everything  was  distinctively 
Roman,  not  merely  the  baths  and  amphitheatres,  works 
of  art  and  palaces,  with  all  the  appliances  of  luxury,  but 
those  true  monuments  of  Koman  civilization  which  we 
find  wherever  the  Romans  penetrated, — roads  and  aque- 
ducts, and  schools  of  rhetoric  and  eloquence.  During 
all  this  time  the  Roman  and  the  Gaul  were  becoming 
gradually  fused  together,  and  before  the  invasion  of  the 
German  tribes  Roman  religion,  Roman  law,  the  Roman 
language,  and  Roman  oppression  and  corruption  were 
as  characteristic  of  life  in  Gaul  as  they  were  of  that  in 
Italy. 

It  is  impossible  to  imagine  any  two  conditions  of 
civil  life  more  opposite  than  that  of  the  Roman  Empire 
and  that  of  the  Teutonic  tribes  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Rhine  and  the  Danube  previous  to  the  invasion.  Before 
pointing  out  these  characteristic  differences  and  the 
points  at  which  the  fusion  at  last  took  place,  it  may  be 
well  to  give  a  chronological  sketch  of  the  invasions. 

The  barbarians,  as  they  were  called  by  the  Romans, 
and  as  they  proudly  called  themselves,  were  moved  in 
th'eir  invasions  by  two  impulses.  Not  only  were  they 


FfRST  WA  VE   OF  INVASION.  21 

tempted  to  cross  the  Roman  frontier  by  their  covetous 
desire  for  the  riches  of  the  provincials,  whose  growing 
weakness  they  despised,  but  they  were,  in  a  sense,  forced 
to  do  so  from  motives  of  self-preservation,  for  they  were 
pushed  onward  by  tribes  in  their  rear  still  more  warlike 
and  savage  than  themselves.  There  were  at  least  three 
successive  waves  of  immigration  moving  at  the  same 
time  towards  the  Roman  frontier, — 1st,  the  Teutonic; 
2d,  the  Slavonian ;  and  3d,  the  Huns,  or  Mongols, — 
and  the  Roman  Empire  was  to  feel,  before  its  downfall 
in  the  West,  the'  shock  of  each  of  these  successive 
waves. 

Before  the  accession  of  Constantine,  the  first  had  swept 
over  certain  portions  of  the  Empire,  but  Rome  had 
strength  yet  left  to  check  these  irruptions  and  to  drive 
back  the  invaders, — the  Goths,  the  Alemanni,  the  Franks, 
and  the  Burgundians, — not,  however,  before  they  had 
marked  their  path  by  the  destruction  of  the  monuments 
of  Roman  civilization  in  Gaul,  and  had  plundered  the 
unfortunate  provincials  without  mercy.  It  is  interesting 
to  observe  how  general  was  the  alarm  occasioned  by  these 
first  invasions,  which  in  the  end  were,  as  I  have  said, 
successfully  repelled;  how  constant  was  the  endeavor  of 
such  rulers  as  Diocletian,  Constantine,  Julian,  and  Theo- 
dosius,  by  various  expedients,  to  keep  the  barbarians 
out  of  the  territory  of  the  Empire.  Whatever  else 
failed,  the  spirit  of  resistance  to  barbarian  inroads  never 
yielded.  Sometimes  the  rulers  resisted  and  beat  back 
the  invaders,  sometimes  bought  them  off,  sometimes 


22  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

took  them  into  the  military  service  of  the  Empire, 
sometimes  tried  to  educate  them  or  to  incorporate  them 
within  their  territory  as  recognized  allies.  But  all  these 
expedients,  adopted  and  carried  out  by  rulers  of  strong 
and  commanding  character,  failed  to  avert  what  seemed 
to  be  the  irresistible  course  of  destiny.  Nothing  can 
prove  more  clearly  how  much  strength  and  how  much 
consciousness  of  the  dignity  of  their  position  as  guar- 
dians of  civilization  were  left  in  the  Romans,  even  in 
those  days  which  we  have  been  taught  to  regard  only  as 
periods  of  decline  and  decay,  than  these  mighty  and  per- 
sistent efforts  to  guard  the  soil  of  the  Empire  from  the 
pollution  of  invasion.  And  certainly  it  seems  to  me  that 
there  is  nothing  in  Roman  history  grander  than  the  spirit 
which  led  all  the  Emperors,  from  Constantino  to  Theo- 
dosius,  to  concentrate  all  the  resources  of  the  Empire  for 
the  accomplishment  of  this  great  object.  But  "  the  stars 
in  their  courses  fought  against  Sisera."  What  the  result 
might  have  been  had  the  Teutonic  tribes  been  kept  be- 
yond the  limits  of  the  Empire,  and,  therefore,  out  of 
contact  with  Roman  civilization,  we  cannot  say.  But 
this  much  is  certain,  that  if  these  races  had  never  crossed 
the  Rhine  and  the  Danube,  and  had  been  left  to  evolve 
a  civilization  from  the  unmixed  elements  of  their  own 
life,  the  great  characteristics  of  modern  Europe,  the  sen- 
timent of  nationalities,  and  Christianity  organized  as  we 
know  it,  would  not  have  existed. 

The  permanent  occupation  of  the  Roman  territory 
began  in  A.D.  395,  with  the  Visigoths,  on  the  death  of 


INVASION  OF  THE   VISIGOTHS.  23 

the  great  Emperor  Theodosius,  and  that  division  of  the 
Empire  between  his  sons  Arcadius  and  Honorius  which 
gave  to  the  first  the  Eastern  and  to  the  other  the  Western 
provinces.  This  arrangement  was  doubtless  made  by  the 
great  Emperor  with  the  hope  that  the  inroads  of  the 
barbarians  might  be  thus  more  effectually  checked;  but  it 
seems  in  the  end  only  to  have  hastened  the  catastrophe. 
These  Visigoths  had  taken  refuge  in  the  Roman  territory 
south  of  the  Danube  from  the  threatened  advance  of 
the  Huns.  They  were  permitted  to  enter  the  army  of 
the  Empire,  and  upon  the  death  of  Theodosius  they 
revolted,  and  Alaric,  their  chief,  set  about  carving  out 
a  kingdom  for  himself  within  the  Roman  territory. 
With  this  object  in  view,  he  took  possession  of  Thes- 
saly  and  of  Greece,  and  marched  through  the  Illyrian 
provinces  towards  Italy.  He  was  at  first  defeated  by 
Stilicho,  the  Vandal  commander-in-chief  of  the  Roman 
armies ;  but  he  again  advanced,  and,  after  three  sieges 
of  Rome,  he  conquered  the  Imperial  City  in  410,  which 
then  fell  (for  the  first  time  since  the  invasion  of  Brennus, 
the  Gallic  chieftain,  seven  hundred  years  before)  into  the 
power  of  the  barbarians.  Meantime,  other  tribes, — the 
Burguudians,  the  Suevi,  and  the  Alani, — stimulated  by 
the  example  of  Alaric,  poured  down  upon  the  plains  of 
Italy.  Their  advance  was  checked  by  the  skill  and  the 
courage  of  this  same  Vandal,  Stilicho,  and  they  were  in- 
duced to  leave  Italy  and  occupy  the  territory  of  the  Em- 
pire in  Gaul  and  Spain, — the  Burgundians  the  lands 
bounded  by  the  Mediterranean,  the  Rhine,  and  the 


24  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

Saone,  and  the  Suevi  and  the  Vandals  ancient  Aqui- 
taine  south  of  the  Loire,  and  the  whole  of  the  Spanish 
Peninsula.  There  they  remained  until  the  Visigoths, 
under  the  successors  of  Alaric,  tired  of  Italy,  took  pos- 
session, first,  of  the  country  between  the  Loire  and  the 
Ebro,  and  finally,  after  the  departure  of  the  Vandals 
for  Africa,  of  the  remainder  of  what  is  now  called 
Spain.  About  the  same  time  the  Imperial  authority 
ceased  to  exist  in  Britain,  nearly  all  the  legions  having 
been  withdrawn  by  Honorius  to  aid  in  the  defence  of 
Italy,  while  those  who  remained  mutinied  and  set  up  an 
Emperor  of  their  own.  Thus  in  about  forty-five  years 
(395-440)  the  fairest  portion  of  that  great  Empire 
which  had  ruled  the  world  for  more  than  four  hun- 
dred years,  and  which  had  more  than  a  thousand  years 
of  growth, — Italy,  the  largest  portion  of  Gaul,  Britain, 
Spain,  and  Africa, — fell,  with  the  Imperial  City  itself, 
into  the  hands  of  the  despoilers.  Surely  history  has  no 
more  impressive  lesson  of  the  vanity  of  human  hopes. 
But  the  work  of  the  destroying  angel  was  not  yet 
completed.  A  small  portion  of  Gaul  still  remained 
under  the  Roman  power,  and  the  new  conquerors  of 
the  remainder  were  not  to  be  left  in  quiet  possession  of 
their  spoil.  Attila,  the  chief  of  the  Huns,  or  Tartars, 
with  his  vast  hordes,  invaded  Germany  and  Gaul  in  450, 
mainly,  doubtless,  with  the  object  of  plunder ;  but  his 
defeat  by  the  Romans  and  the  Visigoths  at  the  battle 
of  Chalons,  in  451,  and  his  subsequent  premature  death, 
no  doubt  preserved  Western  Europe  from  the  permanent 


OTHER  INVADING    TRIBES.  25 

influence  of  a  very  large  Tartar  element.  This,  and  the 
battle  of  Tours,  in  732,  where  Charles  Martel  defeated 
the  Saracens  advancing  from  Spain,  must  be  regarded 
as  among  the  most  decisive  battles  in  history,  for  they 
defeated  the  design  of  those  who  were  striving  to  extir- 
pate or  defile  Christianity  in  Western  Europe.  Even 
after  the  defeat  of  Attila  (451)  some  remnant  of  the 
Roman  authority  was  still  left  in  Gaul  and  Italy.  But 
the  most  powerful  of  all  the  barbarian  tribes,  the  Franks, 
whose  original  seat  was  in  modern  Holland  and  Bel- 
gium, burst  with,  fury  into  the  northern  portions  of 
Gaul,  and  defeated,  under  their  chief  Clovis,  in  486, 
the  Roman  governor,  and  in  a  few  years  after,  the 
Alemanni,  the  Burgundians,  and  the  Visigoths,  thus 
establishing  a  Frankish  kingdom,  embracing  a  territory 
including  all  Roman  Gaul  between  the  Alps,  the  Pyr- 
enees, the  Rhine,  and  the  ocean,  and  destroying  the 
last  vestige  of  Roman  power  north  of  the  Alps.  The 
Vandals  were  already  in  possession  of  Africa,  and  had 
given  several  times  nominal  Emperors  to  Italy.  The 
weakness  and  the  beauty  of  that  land  tempted  shortly 
afterwards  another  fierce  horde  of  Teuton  warriors, 
called  Lombards,  to  assail  it,  and  the  last  remnant  of 
the  once  mighty  empire  of  Rome  was  ruled  for  two 
hundred  years  by  them,  and  until  they  were  in  turn 
subdued  by  the  all-conquering  Franks. 

I  have  given  merely  a  sketch  of  the  invasion  and 
occupation  of  the  Roman  territory  by  the  barbarians, 
reserving  what  I  have  to  say  of  the  history,  institutions, 


26  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

and  manners  of  these  tribes,  and  their  relations  with 
the  Roman  civilization,  for  another  chapter.  What 
concerns  us  now  is  to  know  what  there  was  left  amidst 
the  general  wreck  of  the  Empire  which  was  capable  of 
acting  upon  the  invaders  with  such  a  persistent  and  con- 
trolling power  as  to  completely  change  the  current  of 
the  history  of  the  world, — in  short,  what  were  the  ideas 
of  the  Romans  which  in  the  end  conquered  those  bar- 
barians whom  their  arms  had  failed  to  subdue.  I  must 
confine  myself  to  those  permanent  Roman  influences 
which  contributed  most  directly  to  this  result.  This  in- 
quiry will  lead  me  necessarily  to  say  something  concerning 
the  history  in  the  Empire  of  that  most  potent  of  all  forces 
in  human  affairs  since  it  first  began  to  move  the  world, 
viz.,  Christianity.  Before  the  barbarians  permanently 
occupied  the  Roman  territory,  this  force  had,  in  the 
Empire,  gone  through  different  stages  of  control  over  its 
life,  from  that  of  a  mere  moral  power  or  influence  to 
that  of  a  thoroughly  organized  and  powerful  hierarchy. 
It  was  the  moral  ideas  which  form  the  basis  of  Chris- 
tianity, as  they  were  preached,  before  the  close  of  the 
second  century,  in  every  province  of  the  Empire,  which 
won  converts.  Disbelief  and  materialism  were  the  char- 
acteristics of  the  educated  class  of  Roman  society ;  help- 
lessness, hopelessness,  and  suffering,  of  the  poorer.  In 
Rome,  the  city,  the  republic,  and  afterwards  the  Em- 
peror, were  the  real  divinities.  Religion  there  was  an 
affair  of  state,  and  worship  was  maintained  by  a  highly 
aristocratic  class  as  its  peculiar  and  exclusive  function. 


ROMAN  IDEAS  OF  RELIGION.  27 

There  was  no  proselytism  at  Rome,  because,  unlike  the 
civil  government,  its  religion  never  exacted  universal 
obedience.  To  the  Romans,  religion  was  an  affair  of 
each  country,  and  differing  religions  were  tolerated 
within  their  bounds  on  that  principle.  While  the  com- 
paratively easy  means  of  communication  between  the 
more  distant  parts  of  the  Empire  helped  the  propagation 
of  Christianity,  still  everything  in  the  Roman  funda- 
mental conception  of  religious  ideas  was  hostile  to  Chris- 
tianity, as  a  catholic  or  cosmopolitan  form  of  worship ; 
and  yet,  strange  paradox !  it  was  by  an  adaptation  of 
the  Roman  system  of  administration  that  the  Church 
became  in  the  end  the  most  powerful  of  all  organizations. 
To  the  Roman,  educated  in  these  traditional  ideas 
of  religion,  the  dogmas  of  Christianity,  which  claimed 
a  divine  sanction,  may  not  have  been  very  attractive, 
but  the  precepts,  the  practical  duties,  and  especially  the 
promises  of  the  new  system  won  the  hearts  and  excited 
the  enthusiasm  at  least  of  the  poor  and  suffering.  To 
such  persons  the  doctrines  of  the  equality  of  all  men  in 
the  sight  of  God,  of  fraternity  founded  upon  a  common 
redemption,  the  promise  of  a  future  life  of  happiness,  the 
certainty  of  a  day  of  judgment,  and  the  near  approach 
of  the  end  of  the  world, — all  this  was,  indeed,  the  gospel 
of  consolation ;  and  no  wonder,  speaking  of  human 
means  only,  that  such  a  gospel  was  eagerly  embraced 
by  many.  Of  course,  the  idea  of  some  plan  of  govern- 
ment or  organization  is  inseparable  from  that  of  any 
religious  system.  Like  other  systems,  the  organization 


28  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

of  Christianity,  when  it  was  a  voluntary  society,  seems 
to  have  been  popular  at  first, — so  far,  at  least,  that  it 
committed,  to  a  considerable  extent,  the  control  of  the 
election  of  the  bishops  or  overseers  in  each  town  to  the 
faithful,  clerical  and  lay.  "Whatever  may  have  been  the 
early  organization  of  the  Christian  Church,  many  of 
those  moral  duties  which  we  recognize  as  based  upon 
fundamental  Christian  ideas  had  become  familiar  not 
merely  in  Roman  practice,  but  had  been  introduced  into 
the  Roman  civil  law,  long  before  the  reign  of  Con- 
stantine.  It  is  not  easy  to  trace  clearly  to  the  direct 
power  of  Christianity  the  origin  of  the  more  humane 
and  enlightened  views  of  moral  rights  and  duties  which 
became  conspicuous  in  Roman  practice,  if  not  in  Roman 
law,  during  the  first  three  centuries.  Still,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  believe  that  such  changes  in  their  moral  concep- 
tions could  have  taken  place  without  its  indirect  influence 
at  least.  The  greater  sacredness  of  marriage,  the  punish- 
ment of  infanticide,  the  suppression  of  the  cruel  gladi- 
atorial shows,  the  mitigation  of  the  evils  of  slavery 
by  the  consecration  of  the  servile  virtues,  the  urgent 
advocacy  of  the  manumission  of  slaves,  the  redemption 
of  captives,  the  organized  plans  for  succoring  the  poor 
and  afflicted, — all  these  things,  and  many  others,  which 
may  be  comprehended  under  the  general  name  of  char- 
ity, became  conspicuous  in  the  Roman  world  just  in 
proportion  as  the  warm  blood  of  Christian  life  was 
poured  into  it.  In  every  form  of  creed  or  change  of 
doctrine  which  took  place  in  the  history  of  the  Christian 


CHURCH  ORGANIZATION.  29 

Church  it  is  well  to  remember  that  the  one  unchanged 
thing  was  the  place  occupied  by  these  virtues  in  the 
Christian  system.  Nothing  is  more  remarkable  than 
that  even  among  the  rude  barbarians,  who  looked  with 
contempt  upon  weakness  of  any  kind,  and  therefore 
despised  qualities  such  as  these,  their  gentle  power  won 
at  last  its  way,  and  formed,  under  the  fostering  care 
of  the  Church,  one  of  the  most  characteristic  features 
of  mediaeval  Christianity. 

Let  us  consider  now  the  manner  in  which  the  whole 
Christian  system,  both  the  practical  duties  it  enforced 
and  the  doctrines  which  it  taught,  were  propagated,  or 
rather  were  made  ready  for  infusion  into  the  life  of  the 
barbarian  tribes  when  they  should  come  into  contact 
with  that  Roman  civilization  of  which  organized  Chris- 
tianity formed  so  prominent  a  part.  Apparently  there 
was  in  it  little  likely  to  combine  with  anything  then 
known  of  the  peculiarities  of  these  tribes. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  primitive  organization 
of  the  Church,  and  of  the  bishops,  in  one  sense,  as 
popular  magistrates,  as  they  were  elected  by  the  faithful. 
There  were  frequent  meetings  of  councils  of  presbyters, 
presided  over  by  the  bishop,  without  whose  advice  and 
consent  no  changes  of  importance,  even  in  matters  of 
discipline,  were  undertaken.  Out  of  this  soon  grew  a 
hierarchy,  in  which  the  episcopal  office  was  greatly  mag- 
nified and  the  popular  element  lessened,  metropolitans 
assuming  authority  over  the  bishops  of  a  province,  until 

at  last  the  patriarchate  of  Rome,  as  the  most  important 

3* 


30  MhDl^EVAL  HISTORY. 

See,  if  not  in  the  whole  world,  certainly  in  the  Western 
Empire,  became  recognized  as  entitled  to  the  primacy, 
and  afterwards  to  what  is  called  the  papacy.  Long  be- 
fore the  legal  establishment  of  Christianity  as  the  State 
religion,  this  organization,  excepting,  of  course,  the  power 
of  the  patriarchate  and  the  papacy,  existed  in  the  whole 
Western  Empire,  more  or  less  perfectly  carried  out  as 
the  cities  were  more  or  less  distant  from  Rome.  Before 
Constantino,  not  only  had  Christianity  been  preached  in 
every  province  and  in  every  large  city  of  the  Empire, 
but  bishops  throughout  its  whole  extent,  even  when 
the  Christians  were  a  proscribed  and  persecuted  sect, 
were  collecting  from  the  faithful  large  sums  of  money 
as  alms  for  the  necessities  of  the  Church  and  of  the 
poorer  brethren,  and  were  enforcing  discipline  among 
their  disciples  by  means  of  the  Church  censures,  pen- 
ance, and  excommunication.  So  entirely  had  the  sys- 
tem, even  when  it  was  a  voluntary  one,  taken  root  in 
the  Roman  heart  and  life.  When  Constantine  made 
Christianity  the  official  religion  of  the  Empire,  in  313, 
the  eighteen  hundred  bishops  who  then  ruled  the  Chris- 
tian world,  as  well  as  their  clergy,  were  granted  some 
extraordinary  exemptions  and  privileges.  They  were 
freed  from  the  obligation  of  service  to  the  State,  civil 
or  military,  and  from  the  payment  of  all  taxes;  they 
were  permitted  to  receive  the  donations  and  legacies  of 
the  faithful,  which  their  zeal,  stimulated  by  the  example 
of  the  Emperor,  made  very  abundant ;  and  the  cogni- 
zance of  offences  committed  by  the  clergy  was  withdrawn 


LEGISLATION  OF  CONSTANTINE.  31 

from  the  ordinary  tribunals  and  transferred  to  that  of 
the  bishops.  The  lay  judges  were  ordered  to  execute 
forthwith  the  decrees  of  the  bishops,  and  the  churches 
were  made  places  of  refuge  for  criminals,  where  the  pro- 
cess of  the  civil  law  could  not  reach  them. 

In  this  legislation  of  Constantine  regarding  the 
Church,  everything  in  the  way  of  privilege  seems  in- 
consistent with  the  ancient  Roman  policy,  to  which 
nothing  was  more  abhorrent  than  an  imperium  in  im- 
perio  ;  but  we  cannot  advance  a  step  in  media? val  history 
without  discovering  that  this  legislation  is  the  soil  out 
of  which  grew  logically  and  naturally  that  Church  or- 
ganization which  in  so  great  a  degree  shaped  the  life  of 
that  age.  The  important  inference  to  be  drawn  from 
this  state  of  the  relations  of  the  early  Church  to  the  Em- 
pire is,  that  the  power  of  the  Church  as  an  organization 
was  the  most  active  principle  of  life  in  the  Roman 
world,  from  Constantine  to  the  fall  of  the  Empire, — that 
it  had,  so  to  speak,  absorbed  that  life,  and  therefore 
became  the  most  powerful  agency  in  moulding  the  char- 
acter of  the  barbarians  when  they  came  into  contact 
with  it.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  as  the  Empire 
lost  unity  and  organization  these  grand  characteristics 
of  the  Roman  system  of  administration  were  transfused 
into  the  life  of  the  Church,  that  body  snatching  the 
power  from  the  hands  of  the  dying  Empire,  and  in  its 
turn  ruling  the  world  by  the  same  methods.  Abundant 
illustration  might  be  given  of  the  truth  of  the  state- 
ment that  the  Church  had,  within  its  sphere,  become 


32  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  inheritor  of  the  traditions  of  the  Imperial  power. 
Perhaps  there  is  no  more  striking  proof  of  it  than  in 
what  is  called  the  penance  of  Theodosius.  This  hap- 
pened in  390,  not  a  century  after  Christianity  had  re- 
ceived official  recognition.  The  Emperor  Theodosius, 
although  one  of  the  most  orthodox  of  Emperors,  was 
one  of  the  most  passionate  of  men.  Incensed  because  the 
mob  at  Thessalonica  had  murdered  one  of  his  generals 
and  a  number  of  Roman  soldiers,  he  took  indiscrimi- 
nate vengeance  on  the  town  by  a  massacre  of  many 
thousands  of  its  unarmed  inhabitants.  But,  while  the 
Emperor  was  absolute  despot,  it  appears  that  there  \yas  a 
power  within  the  Empire  stronger  than  he.  That  power 
was  then  represented  by  one  of  the  most  illustrious  men 
the  Church  ever  produced,  St.  Ambrose,  Archbishop  of 
Milan.  When  Theodosius,  residing  in  that  city,  desired 
to  present  himself  in  the  church,  to  participate  as  a  good 
Christian  in  the  service  and  the  sacraments,  he  was  for- 
bidden by  the  archbishop  to  enter  even  its  precincts  until 
he  had  performed  the  penance  imposed  by  the  Church 
upon  a  man  guilty  of  such  a  crime  as  the  massacre  at 
Thessalonica.  In  this  transaction  it  is  hard  to  say  which 
excites  our  greatest  wonder,  the  boldness  and  the  courage 
of  the  priest  who  could  thus  defy  the  Emperor,  or  the 
assured  position  of  the  Church  at  that  time,  which  made 
it  necessary  for  the  ruler  of  the  world  to  obey  its  decrees 
without  hesitation.  So,  take  the  famous  scene  of  Leo 
the  Great,  Pope  in  452,  threatening  the  savage  Attila 
— "  the  Scourge  of  God,"  as  he  was  called — with  the 


POWER    OF  THE   CHURCH.  33 

vengeance  of  the  Apostles  Peter  and  Paul  in  case  lie 
should  dare  to  assail  Rome,  or  the  same  Pope  successfully 
pleading  with  that  other  savage,  Genseric  the  Vandal, 
that  he  should  spare  in  Rome  those  objects  at  least  which 
were  under  the  protection  of  the  successor  of  the  Prince 
of  the  Apostles.  Nothing  is  more  remarkable  in  the 
history  of  the  Empire  during  the  period  in  which  the 
barbarian  tribes  were  gradually  becoming  settled  in  the 
provinces  than  that,  when  the  civil  power  decayed,  and 
the  armies  of  the  Empire  failed,  another  power,  wielded 
by  different  hancls  and  exercised  under  totally  different 
sanctions,  but  based  in  a  certain  measure  upon  the  Im- 
perial organization,  not  only  became  a  substitute  for  it, 
but  proved  the  only  means  of  preserving  order  amidst 
the  confusion  produced  by  the  irruption  of  these  wild 
tribes. 

Another  element  of  Roman  life  which  produced  most 
important  results  in  mediaeval  and  modern  history  was 
the  peculiar  organization  of  the  Empire  as  a  system 
of  government.  Here,  as  in  the  organization  of  the 
Church,  is  the  perpetual  triumph  of  Rome.  We  can 
only  refer  to  those  portions  of  this  complicated  system 
which  were  in  full  vigor  for  nearly  two  hundred  years 
before  the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire,  and  with  the 
force  of  which,  therefore,  the  invaders  were  brought 
more  immediately  into  contact.  The  Roman  govern- 
ment, at  least  from  the  time  of  Diocletian  and  Con- 
stantine,  was  a  pure  and  absolute  despotism.  What- 
ever may  have  been  the  theory  as  to  the  proper  methods 


34  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

of  election,  the  Emperor  really  owed  his  office  to  the 
acclamation  of  the  legions  on  his  accession.  He  was 
addressed  as  "the  Lord  of  the  Universe,"  even  if  he  was 
a  Christian;  the  principle  of  his  rule  was  " quod  principi 
placuit  vigorem  legis  habet,"  and  his  real  strength  lay  in 
the  loyal  devotion  of  the  army.  He  was  at  the  head 
of  a  vast  and  thoroughly  organized  system  of  centrali- 
zation, and  all  the  functionaries  of  the  Empire  were  in 
the  last  resort  responsible  to  him  alone  for  their  acts. 
His  administration  was  based  upon  an  elaborate  system 
of  law,  which  in  many  respects  was  so  conformable  to 
universal  reason  that  it  has  formed  the  basis  of  the 
codes  of  some  of  the  most  enlightened  nations  of  mod- 
ern times, — of  France,  for  instance,  and,  indeed,  of  all 
Latinized  Europe  and  its  colonies  in  the  New  World. 

The  Roman  code  was  supposed  to  embody  the  his- 
torical policy  of  the  Roman  people  in  their  legal  relations 
with  each  other ;  but  they  had  taken  no  direct  part  in  its 
formation,  and  could  in  no  way  alter  or  amend  it.  This 
power  was  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the  Emperor,  who 
made  and  unmade  the  laws  to  suit  his  Imperial  policy. 
Nothing  is  more  striking,  when  we  remember  the  jeal- 
ousy with  which  in  the  days  of  the  republic  the  Roman 
citizens,  in  their  comitia,  or  general  assemblies,  watched 
the  proposal  to  enact  new  laws,  than  to  find  two  such 
fundamental  changes  as  the  removal  of  the  seat  of  gov- 
ernment from  Rome  to  Constantinople  and  the  substitu- 
tion of  Christianity  for  paganism  as  the  official  religion  of 
the  Empire,  effected,  apparently,  without  open  opposition 


ROMAN  ORGANIZATION.  35 

and  by  a  simple  decree  of  Constantine.  The  power 
of  taxation,  too,  was  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the  Em- 
peror; and  when  we  add  to  this  his  complete  control 
over  the  population  for  the  purpose  of  recruiting  his 
armies,  we  find  combined  what  have  always  been 
throughout  history  the  most  potent  instruments  of  gov- 
ernment, the  purse  and  the  sword,  and  we  may  thus 
gain  some  true  idea  of  the  power  of  the  military  despot- 
ism of  the  Empire.  With  our  modern  views,  such  a 
system  seems  destructive  of  all  the  true  ends  of  govern- 
ment. Not  so  thought  the  ancient  world.  To  its  con- 
temporaries the  excellence  of  the  system  consisted  in  the 
perfection  of  its  administrative  organization.  It  worked 
well  as  a  governing  machine  in  this  sense,  that  it  had 
given  to  the  Roman  people  greater  peace  and  security, 
and  for  a  longer  time,  than  any  government  then  known 
in  history.  The  Roman  system  had  not  only  crushed 
out  nationalities,  but  in  its  conception  of  universal  sway 
the  theory  of  separate  nationalities  was  inadmissible. 
No  one  was  ever  willing  to  believe  that  Rome  could  die. 
To  her  own  subjects  the  removal  of  the  capital  to  Con- 
stantinople was  a  mere  matter  of  convenience,  which  did 
not  affect  the  principle  of  her  life ;  even  the  Christians, 
when  Alaric  had  sacked  the  city  whose  limits  had  not 
been  polluted  by  the  presence  of  armed  enemies  for  more 
than  seven  hundred  years,  could  speak  of  this  catas- 
trophe, through  the  words  of  St.  Augustine,  as  the  ven- 
geance of  God  on  the  crimes  and  corruptions  and  cruelties 
of  pagan  Rome ;  but  her  organization,  her  method  of 


36  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

administration,  from  which  the  Church  was  soon  to 
borrow  so  much,  were  constant  themes  of  wonder  and 
admiration  and  imitation.  The  barbarian  tribes,  even 
while  they  were  destroying  the  monuments  of  ancient 
civilization,  were,  in  one  sense,  conquered  by  them ;  and 
they  believed  as  sincerely  as  did  the  Imperialists  and 
the  Christians  that  the  perpetuity  of  Roman  law  and 
Roman  administration  formed  part  of  the  eternal  order 
of  human  affairs.  This  profound  belief  we  shall  see 
exhibited  all  through  the  mediaeval  times.  There  was 
always  a  longing  for  the  past,  a  dream  of  the  restora- 
tion of  Roman  Imperial  order  as  a  cure  for  the  con- 
fusion of  the  times,  sometimes  taking  a  more  definite 
shape,  as  in  the  effort  of  Charlemagne,  in  the  ninth 
century,  to  restore  the  Western  Empire.  Surely  if 
any  historical  fact  is  well  settled  it  is  the  universal 
supremacy  of  Rome.  The  force  of  her  example  was 
not  spent  in  the  rude  mediaeval  age,  when^the  only 
preoccupation  of  thoughtful  men  was  to  find  a  refuge 
from  the  evils  of  barbarism,  but  it  has  been  all- 
powerful  in  modern  times.  No  one  can  study  the 
history  of  France  in  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.,  or  in 
that  of  the  First  Napoleon  when  he  was  ruler  of  the 
Continent  of  Europe, — the  new  Charlemagne,  as  he 
called  himself, — without  being  satisfied  that  the  systems 
of  both  these  masters  of  state-craft  were  formed  on  the 
Roman  model.  And  indeed  we  might  say  the  same  of 
all  other  systems  which  now  govern  the  world  which  are 
called  Imperial.  The  genius  of  Rome  inspires  them  all 


RULE   OF  THE  PROVINCES.  37 

Some  details  of  the  forms  of  the  provincial  admin- 
istration under  the  later  Emperors  are  essential  here. 
Western  Europe  was  divided  into  two  prefectures, — 
that  of  Italy,  including  the  Illyrian  districts  east  of 
the  Adriatic,  and  Africa,  and  that  of  Gaul,  embracing 
the  three  dioceses  (then  a  purely  civil  and  not  an  ec- 
clesiastical division)  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Britain.  These 
dioceses  were  divided  into  provinces,  of  which  in  Gaul 
proper  there  were  seventeen,  with  a  governor  at  the 
head  of  each.  These  governors  were  the  Emperor's 
immediate  representatives,  vested  with  his  powers  for 
the  collection  of  taxes,  the  management  of  the  public 
domain,  the  levy  and  regulation  of  troops  for  the  army, 
and  with  the  whole  civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction 
within  the  province.  This  system  of  government  was 
somewhat  modified  or  supplemented  by  the  exercise  of 
certain  functions  intrusted  to  the  towns,  or  municipia, 
in  the  provinces.  The  original  Roman  system  was 
that  of  a  government  by  cities,  known  to  its  law  as 
municipia,  each  municipium  being  entitled  to  certain 
privileges  and  exercising  certain  powers  of  local  self- 
government.  The  Imperial  policy  was  a  policy  of  cen- 
tralization, and  in  a  great  measure  diminished  the  im- 
portance and  privileges  of  these  municipia.  Still,  in 
the  decline  of  the  Empire  they  were  important  adjuncts 
in  the  administration  of  the  government,  not  of  their 
local  affairs  only,  but  of  the  general  and  Imperial  sys- 
tem. Each  municipium  was  administered  by  a  body  called 
the  curia,  and  its  members,  chosen  from  the  wealthier 


38  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

inhabitants  and  possessing  a  hereditary  right  to  office, 
were  called  curiales.  These  towns  in  all  the  provinces 
of  the  Empire  had  grown  numerous  and  rich  during 
the  long  peace.  The  principal  business  of  the  town 
councils,  in  the  latter  days  of  the  Empire,  was  to  col- 
lect the  public  taxes.  Their  members  were  personally 
responsible  for  the  amount  of  the  tax  imposed  if  they 
failed  to  collect  it  from  those  by  whom  it  was  due,  even 
for  that  levied  upon  lands  which  had  been  abandoned 
by  their  proprietors.  Their  position  was  simply  that  of 
agents  of  the  Imperial  treasury,  and  the  office,  as  may 
readily  be  supposed,  was  rather  in  the  nature  of  a  bur- 
den than  a  place  of  profit.  The  compensation  granted 
by  the  government  to  the  curiales  for  thus  making  them 
universal  tax-gatherers,  or  rather  universal  tax-payers, 
was  exemption  from  torture  and  corporal  punishment, 
which  might  be  employed  in  the  case  of  the  other 
inhabitants. 

Such  were  some  of  the  prominent  characteristics  of 
the  Roman  organization  when  the  Western  Roman 
world  was  overrun  by  the  Teutonic  tribes.  I  have 
referred  only  to  those  which  history  shows  us  affected 
most  powerfully  the  ideas  and  at  last  transformed  the 
life  of  these  barbarians.  Christianity,  organized  after 
the  Roman  pattern,  the  Imperial  administration,  and 
the  recollections  of  the  greatness  of  Rome  under  this 
system  were  among  the  most  powerful  influences  in  pro- 
ducing such  a  result.  Is  it  not  strange  that  in  this  mass 
of  moral  putrefaction,  as  it  has  been  called,  should  lie 


PILATE 'S  SUPERSCRIPTION.  39 

hidden  the  germ  of  our  modern  life?  We  must  watch 
carefully  its  development  and  its  surroundings  through 
a  long  course  of  ages  before  we  can  understand  how 
Divine  Providence  brought  light  out  of  such  darkness. 

There  is  but  one  other  Roman  influence  aiding  in  the 
propagation  of  Roman  and  especially  of  Christian  ideas 
to  which  we  can  refer  here,  and  that  is  the  substitution 
of  the  use  of  the  Latin  for  the  native  languages  in  the 
provinces  of  the  Empire  during  the  latter  days.  One 
illustration  must  suffice. 

Let  us  recall  the  superscription  which  was  placed  by 
Pilate  on  the  cross,  notwithstanding  the  earnest  protest 
of  the  Jewish  rulers :  "  This  is  Jesus  the  King  of  the 
Jews :  and  it  was  written  in  Hebrew,  and  Greek,  and 
Latin."  In  this  inscription  of  Pilate  there  seems  to  be 
an  unconscious  prophecy  of  the  future  destiny  of  the 
world.  From  that  cross,  and  through  the  channel  of 
the  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Latin  civilizations,  have  radi- 
ated all  the  influences  which  have  made  modern  life  the 
precious  inheritance  it  is.  That  cross  was  set  up  at  the 
point  of  confluence  of  those  three  great  civilizations  of 
antiquity  which  have  ever  since  profoundly  affected  the 
condition,  public  and  private,  of  the  people  of  Western 
Europe.  The  Hebraic  monotheistic  conception  of  the 
Deity,  the  Greek  universal  reason,  and  the  Roman 
power,  and  especially  its  language,  have  been  the  great 
secondary  means  of  the  propagation  in  that  portion  of 
the  world  of  Christian  civilization.  In  the  West,  Ro- 
man law,  Roman  Christianity,  and  Roman  power  went 


40  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

together  into  the  most  remote  regions,  and  won  their 
triumphs  on  the  same  fields,  and  by  the  use  of  the  same 
Latin  language.  By  means  of  this  Latin  language 
Roman  civilization  was  presented  to  the  minds  of  the 
barbarians  as  including  many  things  outside  the  domain 
of  force,  and  conquered  them,  when  force  failed,  by  ap- 
peals to  their  reason  and  their  hearts.  It  was  the  Latin 
language  in  the  service  of  the  Church,  and  in  the 
administration  of  the  law  of  the  Empire,  which  taught 
the  barbarians  in  what  the  true  power  and  glory  of 
Rome  and  the  perpetuity  of  her  system  consisted,  and 
thus  was  made  an  important  step  in  their  preparation 
for  the  reception  of  that  new  civilization  of  which  the 
Roman  language  was  the  vehicle,  as  the  Roman  organi- 
zation was  the  motive  force. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   BARBARIANS  AND   THE   INVASIONS. 

WE  are  now  to  consider  the  hostile  forces  with  which 
this  proud  Roman  civilization  came  in  contact  during 
the  invasion  and  conquest  of  the  territory  of  the  Empire 
by  the  German  tribes.  We  are  concerned  here  rather 
with  the  nature  of  those  forces  than  with  the  history  of 
the  military  occupation  of  the  soil,  and  especially  with 
the  long  struggle  between  the  habits,  manners,  and  moral 
sentiments  of  the  barbarians  and  the  totally  opposite 
characteristics  of  Roman  life  and  its  result.  When 
we  reach  this  result,  by  studying  the  development  of 
these  forces  and  the  gradual  process  by  which  they  were 
brought  into  something  like  harmonious  co-operation 
for  the  practical  purposes  of  government,  we  shall  know 
something  of  the  groundwork  of  the  true  life  of  the 
Middle  Age.  We  shall  thus  gain,  too,  some  insight 
into  the  sources  of  modern  civilization,  which  we  can 
trace  to  this  strange  combination  of  the  Roman  and 
Teutonic  elements.  Such  a  combination  is  very  rare  in 
history.  We  find  very  few  instances  in  the  long  list 
of  conquests  where  the  peculiar  civilization  of  the  con- 
querors and  the  conquered  flourished  side  by  side,  and 
where  that  which  was  fittest  in  each  survived  and 

gradually  coalesced. 

4*  41 


42  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

All  the  tribes  which  successively  invaded  and  perma- 
nently occupied  Western  Europe  were  of  the  Teutonic 
race.  They  were  many  in  number  and  in  name, — 
Goths,  Burgundians,  Suevi,  Alemanni,  Vandals,  Lom- 
bards, Franks,  and  Saxons, — but  they  were  all  of  the 
same  great  race,  and  had  the  same  origin  in  the  great 
Aryan  migration  from  Asia.  Although,  of  course,  they 
differed  in  many  respects,  yet  in  their  fundamental  ideas 
concerning  government,  religion,  and  manners,  so  far  as 
they  were  guided  by  these  ideas  in  their  relations  with 
the  Romans,  there  was  among  them  all  a  strong  family 
likeness.  At  the  time  of  the  invasion,  all  these  tribes, 
save  the  Franks  and  the  Saxons,  were  nominally  Chris- 
tian,— that  is  to  say,  they  were  Arians, — holding  a  form 
of  belief  from  which  most  important  results  were  to 
follow,  as  we  shall  see  in  their  subsequent  history.  But, 
relatively  to  the  Romans,  all  the  tribes  were  equally  bar- 
barous, and  their  barbarous  peculiarities  had  the  same 
root,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  were  developed  in  each  in 
pretty  nearly  the  same  manner  after  the  invasion  and 
conquest  of  the  Empire.  The  country  from  which 
these  tribes  came  may  be  roughly  described  as  that 
portion  of  modern  Europe  lying  north  of  the  Danube 
and  between  the  Rhine  and  the  Vistula,  the  Scandi- 
navian Peninsula,  and  certain  portions  of  Russia.  Their 
normal  condition  was  that  of  wanderers,  as  the  Ger- 
mans called  them,  and  the  chief  occupation  of  all  the 
active  and  able-bodied  among  them  was  either  hunting 
or  war.  The  warriors,  like  the  braves  of  the  North 


MODES  OF  BARBARIAN  LIFE.  43 

American  Indians,  despised  industry  and  loved  fighting. 
From  the  earliest  period  of  Roman  history  the  people 
in  Italy  lived  in  a  perpetual  apprehension  (which  sub- 
sequent events  only  too  well  justified)  lest  their  country 
should  be  overrun  by  these  ferocious  savages.  The 
greatest  danger,  indeed,  which,  up  to  the  time  of  its 
occurrence,  had  threatened  the  republic  was  the  invasion 
of  its  territory  by  the  Cimbri  and  the  Teutones,  who 
were  driven  back  by  Marius ;  and  Ca?sar's  conquest  of 
Gaul,  like  Charlemagne's  conquest  of  the  Saxons,  was 
prompted,  no  doubt,  quite  as  much  by  a  determination 
to  extirpate  the  source  of  danger  by  subjugating  the 
fierce  tribes  in  that  region  as  by  a  wish  to  extend  the 
limits  of  the  republic. 

These  tribes  for  the  most  part  lived  originally  in 
Germany,  in  what  are  called  "village  communities," 
the  primitive  Teutonic  system,  in  which,  while  each 
homestead  was  the  private  property  of  the  head  of  the 
family,  and  was  ruled  solely  by  him  as  paterfamilias, 
the  cultivable  land  was  the  common  property  of  all  the 
families  of  the  village  or  township,  and  was  tilled  by 
them.  They  were  not  crowded  together  in  large  towns, 
as  the  Romans  were, — a  peculiarity,  as  we  shall  see, 
of  immense  importance  in  subsequent  European  history. 
The  villages  were  combined  into  districts,  which  were 
governed  by  a  chief  called  graf,  or  count ;  but  in  each 
district  assemblies  of  representatives  of  the  village  were 
held  frequently,  and  decided  the  most  important  ques- 
tions, both  as  to  their  home  government  and  the  warlike 


44  MEDIAEVAL   HISTORY. 

expeditions  of  the  tribe.  Larger  confederations,  made 
up  of  a  greater  number  of  tribes,  were  also  formed  on 
the  same  principle  and  with  the  same  object.  The 
people  of  these  tribes  consisted  of  nobles,  lesser  and 
greater,  freemen,  as  they  were  called,  all  of  whom  took 
part  in  war  and  in  the  tribal  assemblies,  and  slaves, 
concerning  whom  the  distinction  must  be  made  that  one 
portion  of  these  so-called  slaves  were  the  peasants  or 
serfs,  adscripti  glebse,  and  the  other  the  true  domestic 
slaves,  most  of  them  prisoners  of  war,  between  which 
classes  the  difference  became  gradually  greater  and  more 
marked  after  the  tribes  had  occupied  for  some  time  the 
Roman  soil.  We  must  confine  ourselves,  in  our  account 
of  them,  to  those  special  characteristics  which  became 
afterwards  prominent  in  their  relations  with  the  Romans. 
Their  religious  belief,  of  which  some  mention  has 
been  made,  founded  upon  the  Scandinavian  mythology, 
was  perhaps  the  best  expression  of  the  spirit  which  from 
the  beginning  animated  these  warlike  races.  Chris- 
tianity had  at  the  period  of  the  invasions,  under  the 
form  of  Arianism,  supplanted,  at  least  among  the  more 
Southern  Gothic  tribes,  the  worship  of  Odin  and  his 
fellow-divinities,  and  perhaps  the  difference  in  the  out- 
ward forms  of  Christian  worship,  observable  all  through 
history,  between  the  nations  of  Northern  and  Southern 
Europe,  may  be  traced  with  some  confidence  to  the  in- 
fluence of  this  Scandinavian  mythology.  But  the  tribes 
who  made  the  first  serious  assaults  were  Goths,  and  were 
Christians,  even  if  they  were  called  heretics.  The  earliest 


ARIANISM  AMONG    THE  GOTHS.  45 

of  all  the  missionaries  among  them  was  the  celebrated 
Ulphilas  (348-374),  commonly  called  "the  Apostle  of 
the  Goths,"  who  spent  a  large  portion  of  his  life  among 
that  portion  of  the  great  Gothic  race  which  inhabited 
what  is  now  Southern  Russia,  engaged  in  the  praise- 
worthy and  successful  endeavor  to  teach  these  barbarians 
literally  their  letters,  translating  the  Bible  into  the 
written  language  he  had  formed,  and  striving  to  civilize 
them  after  the  Roman  pattern  by  imparting  to  them  a 
knowledge  of  that  form  of  Christianity  which  had  been 
fashionable  in  Constantinople  when  he  was  educated 
there.  From  the  Goths  the  belief  in  Arian  Christianity 
spread  to  the  Suevi,  to  the  Alani,  and  to  the  Burgun- 
dians,  before  they  invaded  the  Empire.  This  conver- 
sion, nominal,  if  we  may  so  regard  it,  of  vast  bodies 
of  these  fierce  barbarians,  who  despised  the  weakness  of 
the  Romans  and  were  preparing  to  invade  the  country 
whose  national  religion  they  had  just  adopted,  seems  a 
marvellous  result  of  the  zeal  and  labor  of  the  apostle 
Ulphilas.  How  all  this  came  about  is  an  historical 
question  of  considerable  obscurity.  One  thing  seems 
very  clear,"  however.  Their  conversion,  as  well  as  the 
extraordinary  forbearance  and  even  respect  shown  both 
by  Alaric  and  Theodoric,  Gothic  kings,  who  were  both 
Arians,  towards  the  Catholic  hierarchy  in  their  invasion 
of  Italy,  are  well-attested  historical  facts.  Moreover, 
the  toleration  of  the  Catholic  worship  and  belief  in 
Gaul  by  the  Arian  chieftains  after  they  had  subdued 
that  province,  is  conclusive  that  under  the  Arian  system 


46  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  barbarians  had  been  successfully  taught  something 
of  that  charity  and  good  will  which,  according  to  our 
ideas,  but  not  to  those  of  mediaeval  times,  are  inseparable 
from  true  Christianity. 

Bui,  whatever  may  have  been  the  influence  of  Chris- 
tianity upon  the  Teutonic  tribes  up  to  the  time  of  the 
invasion,  it  is  certain  that  they  continued  to  be  war- 
riors, and  warriors  after  the  ancient  manner  of  their 
own  race.  Now,  with  that  race,  while  force  was  the 
means,  courage,  which  taught  them  that  the  brave  war- 
rioj*  never  died,  but  only  changed  his  abode,  was  the 
inspirer  of  their  life.  With  this  object  in  view,  death  on 
the  field  of  battle  became  the  great  end  of  life.  The 
Romans  always  looked  upon  them  with  astonishment, 
as  they  observed  that  they  had  overcome  the  most  ter- 
rible of  all  fears,  the  fear  of  death.  The  young  Roman 
when  he  reached  what  was  called  the  virile  age  was  in- 
vested with  a  toga,  as  a  sign  of  his  readiness  to  undertake 
the  duties  of  a  citizen ;  the  young  German,  on  the  con- 
trary, at  the  same  age  was  armed,  in  the  midst  of  the 
tribe,  with  a  buckler  and  a  javelin,  and  he  had  not  per- 
fected his  title  to  manhood  or  to  rank  as  a  warrior  until 
he  had  killed  at  least  one  man  in  battle.  Their  Scandi- 
navian religion  taught  them  the  existence  of  a  future 
state,  and  by  some  it  has  been  thought  that  this  belief 
paved  the  way  to  the  reception  of  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  the  immortality  of  the  soul;  but  when  we  remember 
that  all  persons  not  dying  on  the  field  of  battle  were 
excluded  from  the  Valhalla, — the  Scandinavian  heaven, 


TEUTONIC  TRAITS.  47 

— the  inference  seems  somewhat  strained.  Accompany- 
ing this  warlike  temper,  of  which  Christianity  as  taught 
them  only  changed  the  direction  and  the  motive,  the 
sentiments  of  a  love  of  equality  and  of  personal  inde- 
pendence were  among  the  most  conspicuous  peculiarities. 
These  are  the  qualities  which  are  supposed  by  some 
historians  to  be  the  chief  gifts  of  these  tribes  to  our 
modern  life ;  and,  however  that  may  be,  it  is  certain  that 
in  no  respect  was  the  Teutonic  condition  more  entirely 
in  contrast  with  that  of  the  life  of  antiquity  than  in  this. 
Throughout  the  ancient  world  the  State  was  everything, 
the  individual  nothing.  The  practice  was  reversed  in 
the  case  of  the  barbarians,  and  in  their  mode  of  life 
it  was  impossible  that  the  principle  of  individualism 
should  not  be  greatly  developed. 

Equality  with  them,  of  course,  did  not  mean  a  claim 
founded  upon  what  are  sometimes  called  natural  rights, 
still  less  was  it  that  kind  of  equality  which  prevailed  in 
the  Roman  Empire,  where  all  were  equal,  it  is  true, 
before  the  law,  but  the  equality  was  an  equality  of  slaves. 
But  the  boast  of  the  barbarian  freemen  was  that  a  true 
equality,  founded  on  the  supposed  common  possession 
of  honor,  courage,  devotion,  had  always  been  recognized 
among  them  as  their  most  precious  inheritance.  And 
they  pointed  for  proof  of  this  claim  to  what  has  been 
sometimes  deemed  a  feature  of  the  existence  of  an  aris- 
tocratic system  among  them, — the  practice  which  was 
common  among  the  young  warriors  of  devoting  them- 
selves absolutely  to  the  service  of  some  renowned  chief, 


48  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

•with  no  other  hope  of  reward,  at  least  in  the  earlier 
times,  than  a  share  in  the  glory  he  achieved.  In  this 
relation,  individualism  was  stimulated  to  the  utmost, 
while  it  was  inseparably  linked  with  loyal  and  devoted 
service  to  a  superior.  This  is  the  true  ideal  of  the 
highest  human  service,  never  perhaps  fully  realized 
except  in  our  relations  towards  Him  "  whose  service  is 
perfect  freedom."  No  doubt,  too,  we  find  here  the 
germ  of  all  that  was  best  in  the  feudal  system  as  a  form 
of  human  government,  although  at  no  time  can  it  be 
fairly  described,  at  least  when  that  system  was  fully 
developed,  as  having  been  in  practice  (to  use  the  fervid 
rhetoric  of  Burke)  "  the  nurse  of  manly  sentiment  and 
heroic  enterprise,"  or  as  "  maintaining  that  subordi- 
nation of  the  heart  which  kept  alive  in  servitude  itself 
the  spirit  of  an  exalted  freedom."  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  this  sentiment  of  loyalty  to  a  chief,  com- 
bined with  pride  in  their  personal  independence,  had 
a  permanent  effect  upon  the  history  of  the  races 
which  conquered  the  Empire,  even  forming  a  distin- 
guishing mark  at  the  present  day  between  those  nations 
purely  Teutonic  and  races  more  or  less  Latin  in  their 
origin. 

Another  contribution  made  by  the  barbarians  to  the 
peculiar  characteristics  both  of  mediseval  and  of  modern 
times  was  their  earnest  conviction  of  the  sacredness  of 
the  life  of  a  freeman  as  distinguished  from  that  of  a 
slave.  Slaves,  as  we  all  know,  held  their  lives,  as  well 
as  their  liberty,  very  much  at  the  arbitrary  caprice  of 


PUNISHMENT  OF  CRIMES.  49 

their  masters,  both  among  the  Romans  and  during  the 
mediaeval  age;  but  while  crimes  against  the  person  or 
property  were  always  punished  in  Rome,  as  they  are 
with  us,  as  offences  against  the  majesty  of  the  State, 
no  crimes  among  the  barbarians  committed  by  freemen, 
except  perhaps  treason,  were  made  capital  offences,  but 
were  rather  regarded  as  injuries  to  the  individual  or 
to  his  family,  for  which  atonement  could  be  and  was 
made  by  the  payment  of  money,  proportioned  not  so 
much  to  the  gravity  of  the  offence  as  to  the  rank  of 
the  offender  or  his  victim.  The  sum  to  be  paid  was 
called  by  the  Germans  the  weregeld,  and  the  principle 
upon  which  this  kind  of  satisfaction  for  crime  was  made 
is  not  unknown  to  our  modern  criminal  law.  With 
this,  another  peculiarity  has  left  at  least  a  trace  in 
modern  law,  and  that  is  the  practice  by  which  the  denial 
of  the  party  accused,  supported  by  the  oaths  of  certain 
compurgators,  as  they  were  called,  declaring  that  they 
believed  that  such  a  denial  was  true,  was  considered  as 
judicially  equivalent  to  its  truth  when  established  by 
evidence  from  other  sources.  When  no  other  testimony 
was  accessible,  a  resort  was  had  to  trial  by  battle,  as  it 
was  called, — in  other  words,  to  a  fight  between  the  parties 
or  their  champions, — which  was  supposed  to  be  an  appeal 
to  God's  judgment  to  settle  the  dispute  according  to 
right.  The  barbarian  codes,  especially  those  of  the  two 
great  families  of  the  Fraukish  tribes,  the  Salian  and 
the  Ripuarian,  are  filled  with  minute  regulations  in  re- 
gard to  these  subjects,  showing  not  merely  the  permanent 


50  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

characteristic  traits  of  the  people,  but  how  utterly  un- 
Roman  they  were,  and  how  difficult  and  tedious  must 
have  been  the  process  by  which  they  were  combined  and 
assimilated  with  the  manners  and  ideas  of  the  countries 
which  they  invaded. 

As  to  this  word  "  invasion,"  there  is  some  liability 
to  misapprehension  from  its  use.  The  invasion  of  the 
barbarians  was  not  like  the  torrent  which  overwhelms, 
but  rather  like  a  slow,  persistent  force  which  under- 
mines, disintegrates,  and  crumbles.  The  Germans  were 
not  strangers  to  the  Roman  Empire  when  they  began 
their  conquests.  As  far  back  as  the  battle  of  Pharsalia, 
the  victory  over  Pompey  was  decided  by  the  Gallic  aux- 
iliaries enlisted  by  Ca3sar  in  the  service  of  the  republic. 
It  is  well  known  that  many  of  the  Roman  Emperors 
were  barbarians  who  had  been  successful  soldiers  in  the 
Imperial  army ;  that  military  colonies  were  established 
on  the  frontiers  composed  of  men  of  various  races 
under  the  control  of  Roman  discipline ;  that  the  Goths, 
before  they  revolted  against  the  authority  of  the  Em- 
peror, were  his  chosen  troops ;  that  the  great  Alaric  was 
a  Roman  general ;  that  the  shores  of  the  Danube  and 
the  Rhine,  which  marked  the  limits  of  the  Empire,  were 
lined  with  cities  which  were  at  the  same  time  Roman 
colonies,  and  peopled  with  men  of  the  Teutonic  races. 
When  the  barbarians  did  actually  occupy  the  territory 
their  movement  seems  at  first  to  have  been  characterized 
by  a  strange  mixture  of  force  with  a  sentiment  of  awe 
and  reverence  for  the  Roman  name.  In  Italv  and  in 


NATURE   OF  THE  INVASION.  51 

Gaul  they  appropriated  to  themselves  two-thirds  of  the 
lands,  but  they  sought  to  govern  their  conquests  by 
means  of  the  Roman  law  and  administration,  a  ma- 
chine which  proved  in  their  hands,  by  the  way,  a  rather 
clumsy  means  of  government.  They  robbed  the  pro- 
vincials of  all  the  movable  property  they  possessed,  but 
the  suffering  they  inflicted  is  said  not  to  have  been  as 
great  as  that  caused  by  the  exactions  of  the  Roman  tax- 
gatherer.  The  number  of  armed  invaders  has  doubt- 
less been  exaggerated.  The  whole  force  of  the  Burgtin- 
dian  tribe,  whose  territory,  in  the  southeast  of  modern 
France,  extended  to  the  Rhone  at  Avignon,  did  not,  it 
is  said,  exceed  sixty  thousand  in  all,  while  the  armed 
bands  of  Clovis,  who  changed  the  destinies  not  only  of 
Gaul  but  of  Europe,  were  not  greater  than  one-tenth 
of  that  number.  The  great  change  in  their  life  was, 
as  I  have  said,  that  they  ceased  to  be  wanderers ;  they 
became,  in  a  measure  at  least,  fixed  to  the  soil;  and, 
in  contrast  with  the  Romans,  they  preferred  to  live  in 
the  country  and  not  in  the  towns.  In  this  they  fol- 
lowed their  Teutonic  habits,  little  knowing  what  a 
mighty  change  this  new  distribution  of  population  was 
to  cause  in  the  social  condition  of  Europe.  They  re- 
tained, too,  their  old  military  organization,  and,  after 
attempts  more  or  less  successful  to  use  the  Roman 
administration  for  the  ordinary  purposes  of  govern- 
ment, they  abandoned  it,  and  ruled  the  countries  they 
conquered  by  simple  military  force,  under  their  Dukes 
and  Counts,  the  Romans  generally  being  allowed  in 


52  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

their   private   relations   to   govern   themselves   by  the 
forms  of  the  Roman  law. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  Teutonic 
tribes  as  if  they  were  common  to  the  whole  race.  But 
it  is  to  be  remembered  that  there  were  differing  degrees 
of  civilization  among  them  at  all  times.  The  Goths, 
both  Eastern  and  Western,  were  certainly  far  more  ad- 
vanced in  this  respect  than  the  Franks  or  Saxons.  The 
object  of  their  great  king,  Theodoric  (Ostrogoth,  as  op- 
posed to  Visigoth),  as  declared  by  him  in  his  conquest 
of  Italy,  was  to  restore  the  Roman  name  with  Gothic 
strength,  while  the  codes  of  the  Visigoths  in  Spain,  the 
united  work  of  the  nobility  and  bishops  of  that  country, 
are  strongly  marked  by  the  influence  of  Roman  law. 
Even  the  fierce  and  untamed  Franks  shared  the  sentiment 
of  awe  and  veneration  with  which  the  Roman  name  was 
still  regarded  in  the  most  remote  regions.  Certainly  no 
picture  in  history  is  more  curious  than  the  triumphal 
display  made  by  Clovis  of  the  title  and  purple  robe  of 
the  Roman  patrician  and  consul  which  had  been  sent  to 
him  by  Anastasius,  the  Emperor  at  Constantinople,  after 
the  Franks  had  conquered  the  last  remnant  of  Roman 
Gaul.  It  would  seem  that  a  Roman  title  was  needed 
by  popular  sentiment  in  this  case,  as  in  that  of  Pepin 
afterwards,  to  transform  a  king  de  facto  into  one  dejure. 
There  was,  too,  of  course,  a  great  difference  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  permanent  influence  of  the  barbarians  in 
those  countries,  such  as  Britain  and  Northern  Germany, 
which,  owing  to  their  remoteness,  had  never  been  fully 


PRINCIPLES  ESTABLISHED.  53 

civilized  after  the  Roman  pattern,  and  in  those,  such  as 
Gaul  and  Spain,  where  the  civilization  had  long  been 
identical  with  that  of  Italy.  Making  allowances  for 
these  differences,  we  may  say  that  the  invaders  in  the 
fourth  and  fifth  centuries  brought  into  the  Western 
Roman  Empire  by  their  invasions  four  distinct,  per- 
manent influences  or  tendencies,  viz. : 

1.  The   principle   of  representative   government,  as 
shown  in  the  assemblies  of  freemen,  where  the  common 
interests  and  military  enterprises  of  the  tribe  were  dis- 
cussed and  settled. 

2.  The  principle  of  royalty  in  a  new  form.      The 
king  must  be  of  a  divine  descent,  but  his  election,  also, 
by  his  fellow- warriors  was  essential. 

3.  The  sentiment  of  devotion  or  loyalty  to  a  chieftain, 
constituting  the  relation  of  military  patronage. 

4.  A  strong  feeling  of  personal  independence. 

We  come  now  to  speak  of  the  influence  of  Christianity 
upon  the  barbarian  tribes  after  they  had  occupied  the 
Roman  territory,  and  of  the  conversion  of  those  who 
remained  outside  its  limits.  This  influence,  organized 
by  the  Church  in  both  cases,  was  the  great  agency  which 
made  possible  a  real  fusion  of  the  opposing  Latin  and 
Teutonic  ideas  when  they  came  in  contact,  and  thus  has 
much  to  do  with  the  growth  of  the  life  of  the  Middle 
Age.  We  must  always  bear  in  mind  that  the  Christian 
system  was  the  only  exponent  of  the  grand  principle  of 
the  visible  unity  of  government  then  recognized  in  the 
world,  as  the  Roman  Imperial  system  had  been,  and  that 

5* 


MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 


it  claimed,  as  Rome  had  done,  to  bring  under  the  same 
allegiance  not  only  the  Greek  and  the  Roman,  but  all 
men,  whether  barbarian  or  Scythian,  bond  or  free.  It 

'  •/ 

had  faith  in  its  mission,  which  it  never  lost,  even  in  its 
darkest  days.  Indeed,  the  power  of  the  Church  imme- 
diately after  the  downfall  of  the  Empire,  in  the  midst 
of  the  confusion  which  then  prevailed,  may  be  compared 
to  what  the  metallurgists  call  a  flux,  reducing  to  a  state 
of  fusion  and  homogeneity  the  rebellious  elements  of 
which  European  life  was  then  composed. 

In  the  time  of  Constantine,  Christianity,  under  the 
organization  of  bishops  more  or  less  controlled  by  the 
action  of  both  clergy  and  laity,  was  established  not  only 
in  Italy,  but  in  all  the  provinces  of  the  West, — in 
Illyria,  in  Africa,  in  Gaul,  and  in  certain  portions  of 
Britain.  Nominally  under  the  general  supervision  of  the 
Emperor,  the  Church  formed  a  veritable  imperium  in  im~ 
perio,  with  its  own  laws,  officers,  revenues,  and  powers 
of  administration.  While  the  Imperial  power  was  being 
undermined  by  corruption  and  weakness  within  and  by 
fierce  assaults  from  without,  the  Church  grew  stronger 
and  stronger  every  day.  It  was  like  the  ark  of  God 
in  the  desert :  no  profane  hand  was  bold  enough  to 
touch  it,  and  where  it  rested  there  alone  was  safety. 
While  all  else  that  was  Roman  was  crumbling  or  being 
submerged,  the  Church  alone,  in  its  power  over  the  wills 
and  passions  of  men,  stood  erect  and  undaunted.  We 
must  not  think  of  it,  then,  as  a  mere  teacher  of  morals, 
or  even  as  an  exemplar  of  Christian  virtue  only.  In  all 


POSITION  OF  THE   CLERGY.  55 

the  provinces  and  in  the  larger  towns  the  clergy  filled  all 
the  important  offices,  and  they  assumed  those  municipal 
functions  exercised  by  the  curiales  which  had  been  given 
up  by  laymen  because  their  performance  entailed  ruin- 
ous sacrifices  on  those  who  held  them.  Wherever  in 
these  calamitous  times  there  remained  in  any  of  the 
cities  an  official  defensor  populi,  whose  chief  business 
it  was  to  protect  the  people  against  arbitrary  taxation, 
the  holder  of  this  office,  who  inherited  some  of  the 
authority  of  the  old  tribunes,  was  sure  to  be  a  bishop. 
It  is  not  going,  indeed,  too  far  to  say  that  when  the 
Emperor  Justinian  gave  to  the  bishops  by  decree  a  sort 
of  general  surveillance  over  all  the  public  functionaries  of 
the  Empire  he  was  merely  confirming  by  law  a  practice 
which  had  long  existed.  The  intercession  of  the  Bishop 
of  Rome  with  Alaric,  with  Attila,  and  with  Genseric, 
appealing  to  those  victorious  chieftains  to  spare  the  city 
of  Rome  from  the  horrors  of  a  siege,  must  be  regarded 
not  merely  as  the  courageous  performance  of  a  Christian 
duty  on  the  one  side,  by  which  superstitious  terrors 
were  aroused  on  the  other,  but  also  as  an  assertion  of 
an  official  authority,  the  claims  of  which  were  gener- 
ally recognized.  The  Arian  Goths,  as  has  been  said, 
while  they  appropriated  to  their  own  use  two-thirds  of 
the  lands  in  Italy,  did  not  touch  the  churches  of  the 
Catholic  faith. 

For  various  reasons,  then,  when  the  Roman  authority 
was  withdrawn  from  the  Gallic  provinces  the  Church 
was  not  merely  the  only  organized  element  of  government 


56  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

left  there,  but  in  one  sense  it  was  never  more  powerful 
or  prosperous  than  after  the  occupation  of  the  country 
by  the  barbarians.  It  had,  through  the  devotion  of  the 
faithful,  increased  in  riches  as  well  as  in  power,  and  in 
this  way,  it  is  said,  it  had  lost  something  of  its  early 
zeal  and  purity.  However  that  may  be,  it  is  certain 
that  before  the  fifth  century  closed  there  was  not  only 
in  Gaul,  but  generally  throughout  the  West,  that  prac- 
tical recognition  of  the  authority  of  the  Church,  and  the 
supremacy  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  as  its  head,  which, 
however  unlike  it  may  have  been  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
papal  supremacy  of  later  days,  still  bound  all  Western 
Christendom  in  bonds  more  or  less  close  to  the  See  of 
St.  Peter.  This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  in  what 
way  this  supremacy  was  established.  The  fact  remains, 
that  by  this  thoroughly  organized  system  Christianity 
was  spread  and  the  Church  governed  for  more  than  a 
thousand  years.  The  changes  produced  in  the  world's 
opinions  and  destiny  by  these  events  must  be  regarded 
as  second  in  importance  in  their  far-reaching  results 
only  to  those  caused  by  the  introduction  of  Christianity 
itself.  Whatever  else  was  involved  in  them,  they  sub- 
stituted the  unity  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faith,  worship, 
and  government  for  the  unity  of  Roman  power,  law, 
and  administration.  The  city  of  God,  as  St.  Augustine 
says,  Was  to  be  built  upon  the  ruins  of  the  Imperial 
mistress  of  the  world. 

Let  us  study  some  of  the  steps  in  this  process  as  his- 
tory shows  them  to  us.     Beginning  with  a  recognition 


WORK  OF  THE   CHURCH.  57 

of  the  fact  that  in  the  fifth  century  the  Popes  were 
regarded  practically  as  heads  of  the  Church  in  Western 
Europe,  the  question  is,  how  they  reduced  the  bar- 
barian conquerors  to  the  obedience  of  the  Catholic 
faith.  We  must,  of  course,  confine  ourselves  to  the 
consideration  of  a  very  limited  part  of  their  work ; 
and  yet  its  results  were  of  the  most  far-reaching  kind. 
We  must  remember  that  at  that  time  there  was  really 
no  line  drawn,  as  there  is  now,  between  laws  regulating 
civil  and  religious  life.  The  relations  of  each  to  the 
other  were  inextricably  blended.  It  seems  a  small 
thing  to  say  that  for  more  than  two  centuries  the  Church 
bent  all  its  energies  to  the  extirpation  of  Arianism  and 
to  the  conversion  of  the  Northern  barbarians,  and  that 
the  master-statesmen  of  that  day,  Popes  Leo  I.  and 
Gregory  the  Great,  directed  its  policy;  and  yet  it  means 
that  through  these  agencies  the  destiny  of  the  whole 
world  was  changed. 

As  has  been  said,  the  tribes  which  occupied  the  Empire 
at  its  downfall — the  Goths,  the  Alani,  the  Suevi,  the 
Burgundians — were  Arians.  Among  the  Roman  popu- 
lation of  Western  Europe  they  were  no  doubt  quite  as 
much  hated  as  heretics  as  they  were  feared  as  invaders. 
The  orthodox  Church  in  the  provinces,  except  perhaps 
in  Africa,  seems,  notwithstanding  their  presence,  to  have 
preserved  its  organization  unimpaired.  If  any  efforts 
were  made  for  the  conversion  of  the  Arians  by  pacific 
means,  they  were  unsuccessful.  The  Church,  too,  in  its 
efforts  to  reduce  the  barbarians  to  obedience,  resorted  to 


58  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

that  singular  combination  of  force  and  persuasion,  and 
that  extraordinary  power  of  improving  the  opportunities 
which  presented  themselves  to  her,  which,  speaking  now 
only  of  merely  human  means,  have  made  the  organization 
of  the  Roman  Church  the  most  powerful  and  effective 
for  its  purpose  of  any  which  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

It  has  already  been  said  that  the  Frankish  tribes  in 
their  original  strongholds  along  the  course  of  the  middle 
and  lower  Rhine  were,  with  the  exception  of  the  Saxons, 
the  only  invaders  of  the  Roman  territory  not  nominally 
Christian.  They,  too,  were  the  last  of  the  invaders,  at 
least  while  a  shadow  of  the  Roman  authority  remained. 
They  were  always  regarded  as  the  most  untamed  and 
ferocious  of  all  the  Teutonic  tribes,  and,  as  the  event 
proved,  were  able  not  only  to  extinguish  all  Roman 
authority  in  the  West,  but  to  acquire  and  retain  a  su- 
premacy over  the  other  barbarians  who  had  previously 
occupied  that  portion  of  the  Empire.  The  history, 
then,  of  the  Frankish  domination  in  Gaul,  Spain,  Italy, 
and  Germany,  and  especially  its  conflict  with  whatever 
was  distinctly  Roman, — its  religion,  its  language,  its 
manners,  and  the  faint  traces  of  life  still  left  in  its 
munitipia, — that  history,  from  Clovis  to  Charlemagne, 
is  the  history  of  the  beginnings  of  modern  Europe. 

The  Franks,  or,  as  they  were  afterwards  called,  the 
Merovingians  (sea-warriors),  occupied,  in  the  middle  of 
the  fifth  century,  the  territory  forming  a  part  of  modern 
Holland  and  Belgium  and  a  considerable  portion  of 
what  are  now  known  as  the  Prussian  Rhine  provinces, 


PRANKISH  CONQUESTS.  59 

on  each  side  of  the  river.  The  tribe  was  composed  of 
two  branches, — the  one  the  Salian  (the  northern),  and 
the  other  the  Ripuarian.  They  became  united  for  the 
purpose  of  conquering  Gaul,  and  did  not  diifer  much, 
except  that  the  Ripuarians,  owing  to  their  nearer  contact 
with  the  Romans,  had  become  somewhat  more  tractable 
than  the  Salians.  In  the  year  481  Clovis  was  chief  of 
the  Salian  Franks,  and  began  his  conquests.  In  486  he 
defeated  the  Roman  patrician  Syagrius,  who  maintained 
a  power  supported  by  scarcely  anything  but  the  Impe- 
rial name.  Ten  years  later  the  Alemanni,  one  of  the 
most  warlike  of  the  Teutonic  tribes,  who  were  disposed 
to  dispute  with  the  Franks  the  great  prize  of  Roman 
Gaul,  were  entirely  crushed;  and  still  later  the  Burgun- 
dians,  on  the  upper  Rhine  and  in  the  southeastern  por- 
tion of  France,  were  overcome,  and  their  kingdom,  in 
a  few  years  afterwards,  destroyed;  and  last,  and  most 
important  of  all,  the  great  Visigothic  kingdom,  south  of 
the  Loire  and  extending  to  the  Pyrenees,  was  attacked, 
and  only  that  portion  of  it  which  now  forms  the  larger 
part  of  the  Spanish  Peninsula  remained  in  the  hands 
of  the  descendants  of  Alaric. 

There  is  only  one  way,  it  seems  to  me,  to  account  for 
this  rapid  and  complete  subjugation  by  the  Franks  of 
tribes  of  the  same  race  whose  numbers  were  far  greater 
than  those  by  whom  they  were  attacked.  These  con- 
quests were  no  doubt  due  in  a  large  measure  to  the 
power  of  the  Church,  and  the  baptism  of  Clovis  in  496 
marks  the  beginning  of  a  most  important  era  in  the 


60  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

history  of  Europe,  in  which  priestly  power  was,  if  not 
absolutely  substituted  for  armed  force  as  a  means  of 
supreme  rule,  at  any  rate  so  inseparably  blended  with  it 
for  many  centuries  as  to  shape  the  policy  of  European 
governments.  Clovis,  it  is  true,  when  he  began  his 
conquests  was  a  heathen,  but,  as  he  was  at  least  not  an 
Arian,  he  was  regarded  by  the  bishops  in  Gaul  as  a  fit- 
ting instrument  in  the  hands  of  Divine  Providence  for 
extirpating  that  hated  heresy.  Personally  he  seems  to 
have  been,  both  before  and  after  his  conversion,  one  of 
the  most  bloodthirsty  and  ferocious  savages  of  whom 
history  makes  mention ;  but  these  were  qualities  by  no 
means  inconsistent  in  those  days  with  a  reputation  for 
orthodoxy,  and  at  any  rate  all  this  was  forgotten  by 
the  bishops  in  their  zeal  to  suppress  the  open  profession 
of  heresy.  We  are  told  by  grateful  contemporaneous 
churchmen  that  at  the  baptism  of  Clovis  the  angels  in 
heaven  rejoiced.  Those  who  truly  loved  God  on  earth 
were  made  glad,  it  is  said,  on  this  memorable  occasion 
as  the  bishop,  St.  Re'my,  gave  him  this  short  summary 
of  Christian  doctrine :  "  Learn,  Sicamber,  to  burn  what 
thou  hast  adored,  and  to  adore  what  thou  hast  burned." 
The  reasons  given  by  the  bishops  (who  repaid  the 
toleration  extended  to  them  by  the  Visigothic  monarch 
by  encouraging  the  invasion  of  his  country)  for  the  suc- 
cess of  Clovis  are  very  significant  in  deciding  as  to 
whose  benefit  the  invasion  enured.  "  Clovis,"  they 
say,  "confessed  the  Trinity.  He  destroyed  the  heretics, 
and  thus  extended  his  conquests  in  Gaul.  Alaric  (the 


CONVERSION  OF  CLOV1S.  61 

Visigothic  king)  denied  the  Trinity.  He  was  deprived 
of  his  kingdom,  of  his  people,  and  of  what  was  more 
important,  eternal  life."  It  was  evident  that  Clovis 
himself  knew  what  was  expected  of  him,  and  upon  whose 
power  he  could  rely.  With  new-born  zeal  he  exclaimed, 
"  I  am  grieved  because  these  Goths,  who  are  Arians,  in- 
habit the  best  part  of  Gaul.  Let  us  assail  them,  with 
the  aid  of  God,  and  drive  them  out  and  possess  their 
lands!" 

There  is  a  strange  mixture  of  religion  with  an  inborn 
love  of  plunder  iii  these  proceedings,  characteristic  of  the 
time.  We  cannot,  of  course,  defend  such  an  alliance 
by  any  reasons  which  would  be  regarded  as  satisfac- 
tory now,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  was  thought  per- 
fectly natural  and  legitimate  at  the  time;  and  as  little, 
in  my  opinion,  that  it  was  one  of  those  cases  which 
we  meet  with  so  frequently  in  history  in  which  God,  in 
his  own  way,  has  brought  good  out  of  what  seems  at  the 
time  to  have  been  unmixed  evil.  Strange  as  it  may 
seem,  a  vast  deal  of  what  is  most  characteristic  of  our 
modern  system  is  due  to  the  suppression  of  Ariauism, 
or  rather  to  the  substitution  of  the  organized  Catho- 
lic Church  for  it  in  the  regions  in  which  it  had  been 
the  dominant  system.  For  the  conquests  of  Clovis  in 
Gaul  gave  the  death-blow  to  Arianism,  or  rather  to 
its  political  power  everywhere.  The  Visigoths  were 
driven  into  Spain,  and  were  there,  some  time  afterwards, 
induced  by  the  orthodox  bishops  to  adopt  the  creed  of 
Nicsea,  and  thus  to  perfect  the  religious  unity  of  the 


G2  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

Christian  population.  The  Vandals  in  Africa,  who  had 
been  the  most  obstinate  of  the  Arians,  yielded  to  the 
Catholic  Church,  while  Belisarius,  in  the  last  display 
ever  made  of  the  ancient  Roman  energy,  broke  up  the 
kingdom  of  the  Ostrogothic  Arians  in  Italy. 

The  Frankish  kings  of  the  Merovingian  race,  on 
the  whole,  kept  good  faith  with  the  Church,  to  whose 
influence  they  were  so  much  indebted  for  their  exten- 
sive dominion  in  Gaul.  These  rulers,  unlike  those  who 
reigned  at  Constantinople,  had  neither  the  inclination 
nor  the  capacity  to  meddle  with  mere  theological  ques- 
tions. The  Church  was  not  only  undisturbed  in  the 
profession  of  its  dogmas,  but  the  rude  warriors  of  the 
Franks  embraced  the  faith  with  a  zeal  that  was  not  less 
enthusiastic  because  it  was  on  some  points  blind  and 
undiscerning,  and  savoring  somewhat  of  the  sentiment 
with  which  they  had  formerly  regarded  Odin  and  his 
fellow-divinities.  But  the  Franks  did  not  interfere  with 
the  internal  organization  of  the  Church.  The  bishops, 
indeed,  became  more  powerful  than  ever.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  popular  element  which  in  the  beginning  in- 
fluenced so  much  their  election  and  administration  was 
gradually  eliminated,  and  on  the  other  the  principle  of 
that  aristocratic  organization  which  gradually  destroyed 
the  control  of  their  chiefs  by  the  assemblies  of  freemen 
— the  fundamental  basis,  as  we  have  seen,  of  the  Teu- 
tonic organization — was  transferred  into  the  Church  also. 
The  bishops  became  powerful,  not  merely  as  ecclesias- 
tics, but  as  great  lords  with  large  possessions  and  great 


POWERS   OF  THE   CLERGY. 


powers.  Their  wealth  increased  enormously,  both  from 
donations  and  legacies;  they  had  the  right  not  merely 
of  trying  the  clergy  for  criminal  offences  in  their  own 
courts,  but  also  of  settling  there  questions  concerning 
property  which  might  arise  in  which  any  officer  of  the 
Church  should  be  a  party.  They  had  not  merely  the 
right  to  receive  donations  and  inheritances,  but  also  to 
administer  as  they  thought  best,  and  for  such  objects 
as  they  might  designate,  their  revenues.  The  Church 
estates  were  free  from  taxation,  and  in  this  age  rose  the 
pretension,  which  Vas  never  given  up  by  the  clergy 
until  the  French  Revolution,  that  the  Church  should 
pay  no  taxes,  because  it  served  the  king  by  its  prayers. 
But  with  these  pretensions  came  the  civilizing  and  re- 
freshing influence,  in  that  wild  time,  of  true  charity. 
The  right  of  asylum,  or  refuge  from  the  avenger  of 
blood,  hospitals  for  lepers,  provisions  for  the  sick  and 
poor,  cathedral  schools,  religious  houses,  in  which  the 
inmates,  by  precept  and  example,  sought  to  reclaim  the 
earth  from  the  spoliation  of  fierce  and  cruel  men  and 
make  it  yield  its  fruits  for  the  use  of  God's  poor,  —  all 
these  we  must  never  lose  sight  of,  even  if  our  object 
be  merely  to  ascertain  how  the  Church  conquered  the 
barbarians.  We  shall  find  that  the  Church's  power 
was  not  really  founded  on  the  Church's  pride,  but  on 
its  charity. 

It  is  true  that  many  very  unfit  men  among  the  higher 
Frankish  nobles,  no  doubt  attracted  by  the  splendor  of 
the  position  of  the  bishops,  thrust  themselves  at  times 


MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 


into  the  hierarchy;  but,  whatever  may  have  been  the 
scandal  to  the  Church  from  this  source,  it  is  by  no  means 
certain  that  by  this  practice,  for  a  time  at  least,  its  in- 
fluence over  the  rude  kings  of  the  Franks  was  lessened. 
After  a  time  the  two  systems,  that  of  the  Church  and 
of  the  State,  mutually  supported  each  other,  and  noth- 
ing of  general  interest  was  undertaken  without  the  aid 
of  each.  We  begin  to  see  the  direct  influence  of  the 
Church  upon  the  system  of  these  rude  Franks  when 
we  find  the  Pope  calling  on  Charles  Martel  for  aid 
against  the  schismatic  Lombards;  when  we  find  Pepin 
begging  the  Pope  to  make  him  by  divine  authority  a 
king  dejure,  as  he  already  was  one  de  facto,  and  when, 
on  that  famous  Christmas  day  in  the  year  800,  Charle- 
magne was  crowned,  at  Rome,  Emperor  of  the  restored 
Western  Empire,  in  token  that  a  new  world-monarchy 
had  been  formed,  of  which  the  King  of  the  Franks  was 
to  be  Caesar  Imperator  Sem/per  Augustus,  and  the  Pope 
Pontifox  Maximus. 

The  next  step  in  the  advance  of  the  Frankish  power, 
thus  made  up  of  the  elements  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
authority  firmly  welded  together,  was  logically,  if  not 
quite  chronologically,  the  conversion  of  the  Northern 
nations.  The  Frankish  kings  had  established  the 
Church  on  a  firm  basis  within  their  own  dominions. 
It  was  now  the  turn  of  the  Church  to  lead  the  way,  or 
at  least  to  march  to  the  spiritual  conquest  of  Germany 
in  company  with  the  armies  which  sought  to  annex 
its  territory  to  the  dominion  of  the  Merovingians.  In 


CONVERSION  OF  THE  NORTHERN  TRIBES.  65 

expeditions  where  both  motives  operated  so  powerfully, 
it  is  not  easy  now  to  test  their  comparative  force.  That 
the  Church  was  sincere  in  its  desire  for  the  conversion 
of  these  heathen,  and  that  from  the  highest  motives,  we 
may  infer  from  the  character  of  the  missionaries  she  sent 
among  them,  and  from  that  natural  desire  to  propagate 
what  she  believed  to  be  the  truth,  which  was  conspicu- 
ous even  in  her  most  degenerate  days.  But,  with  that 
wisdom  and  sagacity  in  applying  means  appropriate  to 
gain  her  ends  at  a  particular  time  which  have  always 
characterized  her,  she  saw  clearly  that  her  object  was 
not  to  be  accomplished  by  moral  force  alone.  As  St. 
Boniface,  the  Apostle  of  Germany  and  martyr  of  the 
faith,  avows,  "Without  the  authority  of  the  King  of  the 
Franks,  and  without  the  respect  which  that  authority 
inspired,  nothing  could  have  been  done  either  to  teach 
the  people,  or  to  protect  the  priests  and  monks  who 
were  engaged  in  this  hazardous  service,  or  to  break  up 
the  pagan  superstitions  or  the  worship  of  idols." 

In  this  way  the  Church  became  the  natural  and  neces- 
sary ally  of  the  Franks  in  the  conquest  of  Germany, 
and,  while  she  must  bear  her  share  of  the  responsi- 
bility for  the  horrible  cruelties  attendant  upon  it,  and 
especially  for  the  wholesale  conversions  that  were  made 
when  the  alternative  was  extermination  or  baptism,  still 
we  may  find  some  excuse,  not  merely  in  the  permanent 
good  results  which  followed  the  destruction  of  the 
heathen  religions,  but  also  in  the  reflection  that,  in  the 

opinion  then  prevalent,  conquest  and  Christianity  stood 

6* 


66  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

in  relation  to  each  other  as  cause  and  effect.  There  is 
something  revolting  to  us  in  the  notion  of  men  being 
made  Christians  by  the  power  of  the  sword,  but  cir- 
cumstances forbade  either  statesmen  or  churchmen  to 
entertain  such  opinions  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  cen- 
turies. For  it  was  not  only  the  spread  of  Christianity 
which  was  involved  in  these  wars  of  Charlemagne  and 
his  predecessors  with  the  fierce  tribes  of  Germany,  but 
the  future  of  Western  Europe  as  well.  The  heathen 
surrounded  the  Empire  of  the  Franks,  scarcely  per- 
manently settled  in  Gaul,  as  the  Franks  had  threatened 
the  Roman,  and  a  new  and  fiercer  invasion  was  feared 
unless  its  power  was  broken  in  its  native  strongholds. 

It  is  refreshing  to  turn  from  these  doubtful  methods 
of  propagating  Christianity  to  the  evangelic  labors  of 
those  true  defenders  of  the  faith,  whose  record  of  devo- 
tion, self-sacrifice,  and  successful  endeavor  to  plant  a 
permanent  civilization  in  the  wilds  of  Germany  forms 
one  of  the  brightest  chapters  in  history.  We  must 
understand  that  the  inhabitants  of  certain  portions  of 
Germany,  such  as  Frisia  on  the  north,  Saxony  and 
Thuringia  in  the  middle,  and  Bavaria  and  a  part  of  the 
country  of  the  Alemanni  on  the  south,  had  little  to  do 
with  the  invasion  of  the  Empire.  They  had  remained 
untamed  heathen  and  German,  with  little  or  no  infusion 
of  the  Roman  element.  Towards  these  countries  the 
zeal  of  the  early  missionaries  was  directed.  St.  Colum- 
ban,  an  Irish  monk,  established  himself,  with  twelve 
of  his  countrymen,  in  the  midst  of  the  heathen  in 


THE  PAPAL  MISSIONARIES.  67 

589,  near  the  Vosges  Mountains,  and  spread  the  Chris- 
tian doctrine,  with  wonderful  success,  among  the  popu- 
lation of  what  is  now  Alsace,  Baden,  and  Switzerland, 
and  his  disciple,  St.  Gall,  established  among  the  Orisons 
one  of  the  most  famous  monasteries  of  the  Middle  Age. 
From  these  points  rays  of  light  reached  Southwest  Ger- 
many, the  missionary  stations  being  advanced  far  into 
Bavaria.  The  work  was  not  at  first  as  thoroughly  done 
as  it  would  have  been  had  it  been  better  organized.  It 
needed  unity  of  plan,  and,  above  all,  some  one  control- 
ling and  directing  authority.  This  was  found  when  the 
Pope  became  the  acknowledged  head  of  the  Western 
Church.  We  all  remember  the  story  of  the  English  boys 
found  by  Pope  Gregory  the  Great  in  the  slave-market  at 
Rome,  and  how  this  incident  is  supposed  to  have  induced 
him  to  send  Augustine  and  his  monks  to  convert  the 
heathen  Anglo-Saxons,  then  occupying  the  south .  of 
England.  This  enterprise  proved  so  successful  that  it 
led  him  to  take  similar  methods  to  assure  the  triumph 
of  the  Church  in  Germany.  His  agents  for  this  holy 
purpose  were  converted  Anglo-Saxons,  and  Frisia,  the 
country  which  stretches  along  the  North  Sea  from  the 
Elbe  to  the  Weser,  then  perhaps  the  rudest  of  all  the 
German  districts,  was  the  scene  of  their  first  labors. 
Here  little  success  at  first  attended  them,  for  a  reason 
which  prevailed  apparently  nowhere  else  in  Germany, 
and  that  was  that  Frankish  conquest  and  Christianity 
were  both  presented  to  them  at  the  same  time,  and  both 
were  equally  regarded  as  the  badge  of  slavery.  But  the 


68  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

heroism  of  Willibrod  and  Winfred,  who  were  persistent 
in  their  efforts,  and  the  martyrdom  of  the  last,  whose 
name  had  been  changed  by  the  Pope  to  Boniface,  at  last 
completed  the  triumph  of  Christianity  in  these  remote 
regions.  Time  would  fail  me  to  tell  of  the  labors  of 
many  others,  men  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy, 
the  true  pioneers  of  civilization  among  these  tribes,  of 
St.  Anskar,  for  instance,  the  "  Apostle  of  the  North,"  as 
he  was  called,  to  whom  the  Scandinavian  countries  were 
indebted  for  their  first  knowledge  of  Christianity.  But 
a  few  words  must  be  said  about  Winfred,  St.  Boniface, 
the  "  Apostle  of  Germany ;"  for  certainly  no  man  before 
Charlemagne  did  as  much  for  the  civilization  of  that 
country.  An  Englishman  of  noble  birth,  he  placed 
himself  under  the  direction  of  the  Pope  as  a  missionary 
to  the  heathen  tribes  of  Central  Germany.  He  was 
a  statesman  as  well  as  a  sincere  zealot,  and  he  allied 
himself  in  carrying  out  his  plans  closely,  as  we  have 
seen,  with  the  Merovingian  kings,  whose  wars  in  Thu- 
ringia  and  Saxony  were  guided  much  by  his  advice.  He 
was  as  brave  as  he  was  politic.  He  could  cut  down 
a  sacred  oak  supposed  to  be  under  the  protection  of 
the  god  Donar,  the  Scandinavian  god  of  thunder,  and 
die  a  martyr's  death,  as  he  did,  with  the  same  cheerful 
courage,  for  the  propagation  of  the  faith.  He  could 
live  like  a  hermit  in  a  monastery,  and  yet,  when  duty 
to  the  Church  and  obedience  to  the  Pope  called  him 
to  the  spiritual  administration  of  Germany,  he  could 
give  the  divine  sanction  to  the  usurpation  of  Pepin 


SAINT  BONIFACE.  69 

of  the  Merovingian  crown.  He  could  rule  with  almost 
unchecked  power  from  his  Archiepiscopal  see  of 
Mentz  the  whole  Church  of  Germany,  and  yet,  in  the 
midst  of  it  all,  seek  to  renew  the  arduous  labors  of 
the  humble  missionary  and  to  meet  a  martyr's  death. 
He  established  those  great  centres  of  civilization  of 
those  times, — monasteries  and  bishops'  sees.  Such  a 
man  is  worthily  called  the  "Apostle  of  Germany,"  and 
the  work  that  he  did,  unlike  that  of  Charlemagne, 
has  never  been  undone,  but,  ever  fresh  and  vigorous, 
bears  fruit  more  and  more  abundantly. 


CHAPTER   III. 

'       THE    PRANKISH    CONQUESTS   AND    CHARLEMAGNE. 

THE  occupation  of  Central  Europe  by  the  Franks 
under  Clovis  and  his  descendants  (known  in  history  as 
Merovingians)  is  an  important  historical  fact,  because  it 
signifies  the  permanent  transfer  of  the  power  which  had 
controlled  these  regions  from  the  Latin  to  the  German 
races.  The  record  of  the  Merovingian  rule  in  Gaul  for 
two  hundred  and  seventy  years  is  a  most  dreary  one, 
made  up  of  constant  struggles  among  the  descendants  of 
Clovis  for  the  chieftainship  of  the  tribe,  during  which 
the  kingdom  of  the  Franks  was  divided  among  them 
no  less  than  eight  times.  We  look  in  vain  during  a 
larger  part  of  this  period  for  the  lasting  growth  of  any 
one  of  those  ideas  upon  which  our  modern  civilization 
rests,  and  which  we  had  reason  to  find  after  the  appar- 
ent combination  of  the  Teutonic  and  Roman  character- 
istics which  had  been  begun  under  the  guiding  influence 
of  the  Christian  Church.  In  Gaul,  the  fierce  warrior 
chiefs  seem  to  have  dragged  the  Church  itself  almost 
into  the  abyss  of  barbarism.  In  Spain  and  in  Eng- 
land, during  the  same  era,  the  conflict  among  the  differ- 
ent races  forming  the  population  ceased,  and  progress 
was  made  not  only  towards  something  like  unity  in  the 

form  of  government,  but  also  iu  the  abandonment  of 
70 


BOUNDARIES  OF  THE  PRANKISH  KINGDOM.  71 

those  habits  of  restless  wandering  for  the  sake  of  plun- 
der, which  cannot  coexist  with  even  the  lowest  form  of 
civilization.  In  Gaul,  in  these  respects,  the  Franks 
were  almost  as  lawless  as  when  they  roamed  in  the 
forests  of  Germany. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  recount  these  obscure  quarrels  of 
the  successors  of  Clovis.  What  is  more  important  is  to 
know  what  were  the  boundaries  of  their  kingdom  towards 
the  close  of  the  Merovingian  dynasty.  I  ought  per- 
haps to  qualify  my  statement  that  we  find  none  of  the 
characteristics  of  the  policy  of  a  civilized  government 
among  the  Franks  in  the  later  days  of  the  Merovin- 
gians, by  saying  that  they  at  least  never,  even  in  the 
most  disordered  times,  neglected  measures  to  secure  their 
eastern  frontier  from  invasion  by  the  tribes,  more  bar- 
barous than  they,  who  bordered  upon  it.  Over  the 
tribes  outside  their  limits — the  Frisians,  the  Saxons,  and 
others — the  Franks  claimed  persistently  a  supremacy 
which  was  maintained  both  then  and  in  the  time  of 
Charlemagne  by  constant  wars,  the  object  being  rather 
to  insure  the  safety  of  their  own  lands  than  to  acquire 
new  territory.  Towards  the  close  of  the  Merovingian 
period,  then,  the  frontier  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Franks 
on  the  east  and  north  was  the  river  Rhine,  in  Ger- 
many, and  on  the  south  and  west  the  river  Garonne,  in 
France, — from  Amsterdam  to  Bordeaux,  and  from  the 
Mediterranean  to  the  German  Ocean.  This  territory 
was  divided  into  four  great  districts,  or  kingdoms  as 
they  were  called:  Austrasia,  or  the  eastern  kingdom, 


72  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

from  the  river  Rhine  to  the  Meuse,  with  Metz  as  its 
principal  city;  Neustria,  or  the  western  kingdom,  extend- 
ing from  Austrasia  to  the  ocean  on  the  west,  and  to 
the  Loire  on  the  south ;  Aquitaine,  south  of  that  river 
to  the  foot  of  the  Pyrenees ;  and  Burgundy,  from  the 
Rhone  to  the  Alps,  including  Switzerland.  These  four 
kingdoms  became,  before  the  extinction  of  the  Mero- 
vingian race,  consolidated  into  two,  viz.,  Austrasia 
and  Neustria,  Eastern  and  Western  Francia, — modern 
Germany  and  modern  France,  roughly  speaking, — of 
which  the  first  was  to  gain  the  pre-eminence,  as  it  was 
the  seat  of  the  power  of  that  race  of  Charlemagne  which 
seized  upon  the  kingdoms  of  the  Merovingians.  But 
in  these  kingdoms,  while  the  family  of  Clovis  occupied 
them,  the  royal  power  became  more  and  more  feeble  as 
time  went  on,  a  condition  which  is  illustrated  by  the 
title  given  in  history  to  these  kings, — that  of  rois 
faineants.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that,  owing  to  the 
degradation  into  which  the  power  of  the  Merovingians 
had  gradually  sunk  under  the  strong  will  of  the  Mayors 
of  the  Palace,  there  was  for  these  kings  rien  ti  faire. 
The  military  organization  of  the  Franks  was  kept  up 
with  great  care.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  mili- 
tary service  of  the  chiefs  was  paid  for  by  them  in 
grants  of  land,  sometimes  hereditary  and  sometimes 
not;  and  that  these  grantees,  usually  the  companions 
of  the  King,  under  the  name  of  Antrustions,  Leudes, 
etc.,  became  possessed  of  vast  domains  and  correspond- 
ing power.  We  call  these  rude  barbarian  chiefs  kings ; 


HABITS  OF  THE  PRANKISH  KINGS.         73 

but  there  was  nothing  characteristic  of  the  modern 
monarch  about  them.  They  may  have  been  larger  pro- 
prietors of  lands  than  their  Antrustions,  and  a  nominal 
allegiance  was  due  to  them.  The  Franks  had  almost 
a  superstitious  reverence  for  the  rights  of  their  kings, 
as  they  were  supposed  to  be  of  divine  lineage;  but, 
practically  the  aristocratic  element,  and  not  the  kingly 
element,  was  the  true  basis  of  the  power  of  government 
as  it  existed  among  them  as  soon  as  their  wanderings 
had  ceased.  Thierry  gives  us  an  interesting  picture  of 
the  domestic  life  'of  one  of  these  so-called  kings,  from 
which  it  would  appear  that  he  resembled  as  little  a 
feudal  lord  with  his  government  organized  by  a  graded 
hierarchy  as  he  did  a  modern  monarch  with  the  forces 
which  centralization  has  placed  at  his  disposal.  "  The 
Frankish  kings,"  he  says,  "did  not  inhabit  cities.  They 
moved  about  from  one  of  their  domains  to  another, 
remaining  in  each  as  long  as  the  provisions  which 
had  there  been  accumulated  for  themselves  and  their 
companions  lasted.  One  of  these  immense  farms  where 
the  Frankish  kings  held  their  court,  and  which  they 
much  preferred  to  the  finest  cities  of  Roman  Gaul,  was 
Braine.  The  royal  palace  there  was  not  like  the  castles 
of  the  feudal  times.  The  large  house  was  built  of  wood ; 
and  it  was  surrounded  by  lodgings  for  the  officers  of  the 
palace.  There  were  in  the  neighborhood  other  houses, 
of  less  imposing  appearance,  occupied  by  a  large  num- 
ber of  persons,  brought  together  by  the  necessities  of  the 
king  and  his  retainers,  who  were  engaged  in  various 


74  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 


handicrafts, — silversmiths,  weavers,  tanners,  etc.  The 
materials  for  their  work,  and  their  implements,  had 
generally  been  stolen  from  the  neighboring  Gallic  town." 
The  houses  of  the  farmers  and  the  huts  of  the  slaves  of 
the  domain  made  up  the  royal  encampment,  the  general 
appearance  being  that  of  an  ancient  German  village 
community  upon  a  large  scale.  It  is  evident  that  a 
chief  living  in  this  way  would  have  little  chance  of 
resisting  a  combination  of  turbulent  nobles  whose  ob- 
ject might  be  to  extend  their  own  power  and  domains. 
And  so  it  happened. 

The  most  powerful  officer  of  a  Frankish  king  was 
his  steward,  or,  as  he  was  called,  the  mayor  of  his  pal- 
ace. He  was  generally  his  most  trusted  companion  or 
Antrustion,  and  of  the  highest  rank  and  of  the  largest 
possessions  among  the  nobles.  In  each  of  the  four 
Frankish  kingdoms  he  was  the  alter  ego  of  the  king. 
Austrasia,  Eastern  Francia, — that  is,  Germany, — toward^ 
the  close  of  the  Merovingian  dynasty  had  become  greatly 
superior  in  power  and  influence  to  Neustria.  The  great 
nobles  in  Austrasia  profited  by  the  dissensions  of  the 
descendants  of  Clovis  to  increase  their  own  power,  and 
these  mayors  of  the  palace  were  their  leaders  in  this 
movement.  In  Austrasia  the  office  had  become  heredi- 
tary in  the  family  of  Pepin  of  Landen  (a  small  village 
near  Liege),  and  under  its  guidance  the  degenerate  chil- 
dren of  Clovis  in  that  kingdom  fought  for  the  suprem- 
acy with  those  equally  degenerate  in  Neustria,  at  that 
time  also  under  the  real  control  of  another  mayor  of 


THE  FAMILY  OF  CHARLEMAGNE.  75 

the  palace,  called  Ebroin.  The  result  of  this  struggle, 
after  much  bloodshed  and  misery,  was  reached  in  the 
year  687  at  the  battle  of  Testry,  in  which  the  Austra- 
sians  completely  defeated  the  Neustrians.  The  date 
of  the  event  is  important,  as  marking,  practically,  not 
merely  the  extinction  of  the  first  royal  race  of  the 
Franks, — the  Merovingians, — but  also  the  preponder- 
ance in  the  government  of  Gaul  of  the  German  ele- 
ment, as  well  as  the  consequent  decline  of  the  Roman 
and  Gallic  influence  north  of  the  Alps,  and  the  rise  of. 
that  power  which  in  later  years,  and  under  Charle- 
magne, overshadowed  all  Europe. 

We  must  remember  that  the  Merovingian  princes 
were  still  nominally  kings,  while  all  the  real  power  was 
in  the  hands  of  the  descendants  of  Pepin  of  Landen, 
mayors  of  the  palace,  and  the  policy  of  government  was 
as  fully  settled  by  them  as  if  they  had  been  kings  dejure 
as  well  as  de  facto.  This  family  produced  in  its  earlier 
days  some  persons  who  have  become  among  the  most 
conspicuous  figures  in  history: — Pepin,  the  founder; 
Pepin  le  Gros,  of  He"ristal ;  Charles,  his  son,  commonly 
called  Martel,  or  the  Hammerer;  Pepin  le  Bref,  under 
whom  the  Carlovingian  dynasty  was,  by  aid  of  the  Pope, 
recognized  as  the  lawful  successor  of  the  Merovingians, 
even  before  the  extinction  of  that  race;  and,  lastly, 
Charles,  surnamed  the  Great,  or  Charlemagne,  one  of 
the  few  men  of  the  human  race  who,  by  common  consent, 
have  occupied  the  foremost  rank  in  history.  These  Car- 
lovingians,  or  Carolingians,  from  the  beginning  claimed 


76  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

support  for  their  dynasty  on  the  ground  that  they  should 
be  regarded  as  true  sovereigns,  because  they  had  done 
something  for  the  advantage  of  the  people  over  whom 
they  ruled,  in  striking  contrast,  in  this  respect,  with  the 
do-nothing  policy  of  their  predecessors ;  and  we  can  have 
no  better  standard  for  judging  their  pretensions  now. 
The  history  of  this  family  claims  our  special  attention 
and  interest,  for  during  its  rule,  and  as  a  result  of  its 
policy,  there  was  a  rapid  growth  of  some  of  the  more 
active  elements  of  our  modern  life. 

The  object  of  Pepin  of  He"ristal  was  twofold, — to 
repress  the  disposition  of  the  turbulent  nobles  to  en- 
croach upon  the  royal  authority,  and  to  bring  again 
under  the  yoke  of  the  Franks  those  tribes  in  Germany 
who  had  revolted  against  the  Frankish  rule  owing  to  the 
weakness  of  the  Merovingian  government.  He  measu- 
rably accomplished  both  objects,  and  a  failure  in  either 
would  undoubtedly  have  precipitated  a  new  and  de- 
structive wave  of  invasion  upon  unhappy  Gaul.  He 
seems  to  have  had  what  perhaps  is  the  best  test  at  all 
times  of  the  claims  of  a  man  to  be  a  real  statesman : 
some  consciousness  of  the  true  nature  of  his  mission, — 
the  establishment  of  order.  With  a  view  of  strength- 
ening his  position,  he  revived  some  of  the  ancient  and 
cherished  customs  of  the  Franks  which  had  been  aban- 
doned by  his  predecessors.  He  convoked  those  assem- 
blies of  the  people,  the  Champs  de  Mars  or  de  Mai, 
which  had  been  one  of  the  original  institutions  of  the 
Franks,  where,  as  we  have  seen,  every  public  measure 


SERVICES   TO   CIVILIZATION.  77 

was  discussed  and  settled  by  the  nobles  before  its  adop- 
tion, but  which  had  become  since  their  occupation  of  Gaul 
councils  of  war  only.  His  son  and  successor,  Charles 
Martel,  was  even  more  conspicuous  for  the  possession  of 
the  genius  of  statesmanship,  but  he  exhibited  it  iu  a 
somewhat  different  direction.  He,  too,  strove  to  hold 
the  nobles  in  check,  and  to  break  the  power  of  the  Frisian 
and  the  SaxOn  tribes ;  and  he  fought  besides,  fortunately 
for  his  fame,  one  of  the  fifteen  decisive  battles  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world,  that  of  Poitiers  in  732,  by  which  the 
Saracens,  who  had  conquered  Spain,  and  who  had  strong 
hopes  of  gaining  possession  of  the  whole  of  Western 
Europe,  were  driven  back  from  Northern  France,  never 
to  return.  "We  can  only  estimate  the  importance  of  such 
a  victory  as  this  by  reflecting  what  would  have  been  the 
civilization  of  Europe  had  the  Saracens  succeeded  in 
this  battle,  and  had  that  civilization  been  drawn  from 
Oriental  and  Mohammedan  sources  instead  of  from  those 
that  were  Roman  and  Christian.  Charles  Martel,  there- 
fore, saved  Central  Europe  from  the  ruin  threatening  it 
from  the  Moslem  hordes,  while  his  father,  Pepin,  had 
forced  back  the  tide  of  the  barbarian  invasion,  ready  to 
overwhelm  it  as  it  advanced  from  the  East.  His  son, 
Pepin  le  Bref,  is  equally  conspicuous  with  the  rest  in 
history,  but  in  a  somewhat  different  way.  He  continued 
the  never-ending  wars  in  Germany  and  in  Gaul  with  the 
object  of  securing  peace  by  the  sword,  and  with  more  or 
less  success.  But  his  career  is  noteworthy  principally 

because  he  completed  the  actual  deposition  of  the  last  of 

7* 


78  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  Merovingian  race,  whose  nominal  servants  but  'real 
masters  he  and  his  predecessors,  mayors  of  the  palace, 
had  been,  and  because  he  sought  and  obtained  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  Church  for  this  usurpation.  In  the  year  751 
Pepin  thought  that  the  anomalous  position  of  the  mayor 
of  the  palace,  who  had  all  the  power  and  responsibility 
of  the  king,  but  without  the  title,  a  state  of  things 
which  had  lasted  from  the  time  of  the  battle  of  Testry, 
(687,)  should  be  brought  to  an  end. 

It  is  important  to  observe  here  not  merely  the  very 
natural  and  proper  feeling  on  his  part  that  he  who  wields 
the  power  should  possess  the  title, — because  this  had  been 
more  or  less  the  practice  of  the  Franks  at  all  times, — but 
the  evident  belief  which  existed  in  the  mind  of  this  great 
ruler  of  the  necessity  of  superadding  to  his  own  title  and 
the  choice  of  his  nation  the  sanction  of  the  Church.  This 
indicates,  it  seems  to  me,  a  very  different  kind  of  recog- 
nition of  the  authority  of  the  Church  from  that  seen  in 
the  baptism  of  Clovis;  and  it  would  appear  from  the 
anxiety  of  Pepin  to  obtain  the  decision  of  the  Pope  in 
favor  of  his  title  to  the  crown,  as  well  as  from  his  stren- 
uous support  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  missionaries  in  Frisia 
and  Saxony,  that  during  the  confusion  and  trouble  of 
the  later  days  of  the  Merovingians,  however  the  civil 
power  under  the  old  system  may  have  crumbled,  that 
of  the  Church  had  gone  on  silently  increasing.  These 
rude  warriors,  barbarous  and  untamed  in  everything 
else,  were  forced  at  least  to  abandon  as  their  king  a 
descendant  of  Odin  and  to  seek  for  one  who  would  be 


THE  POPES  AND    THE  FRANKS.  79 

recognized  as  a  true  ruler  by  the  God  of  the  Christians. 
Surely  this  tenacity  of  life  in  the  Christian  organization 
while  everything  around  it  was  falling  into  ruin  is  very 
remarkable.  Pepin's  system  was  undoubtedly  that  of 
an  alliance  with  the  Church ;  but  this,  of  course,  he 
would  not  have  sought  had  he  not  seen  in  it  the  means 
of  the  advancement  of  his  own  power  and  dynasty. 
So  on  the  Pope's  side  the  advantage  of  the  alliance 
was  very  clear. 

Ever  since  the  occupation  of  the  larger  portion  of 
Italy  by  the  Lombards,  and  the  rest  of  the  country  by 
the  representatives  of  the  Greek  Emperor  at  Constan- 
tinople, neither  the  civil  nor  the  spiritual  jurisdiction 
of  the  Pope  in  Italy  had  been  treated  with  much  respect. 
The  Franks  were  not  only  the  most  powerful  of  all  the 
tribes,  but  they  alone  of  all  the  others  were  Catholic,  the 
rest  being  Arians.  It  was  natural  that  the  Popes,  in 
their  distress  caused  by  the  encroachments  of  the  Lom- 
bards and  the  want  of  protection  by  the  Greeks,  should 
desire  to  call  these  redoubtable  orthodox  warriors  to  their 
aid.  An  appeal  for  this  purpose  was  made  to  Charles 
Martel,  who,  notwithstanding  his  services  to  Christen- 
dom by  driving  back  the  Saracenic  invasion,  had  fallen 
under  the  censure  of  the  Church  because  he  had  distrib- 
uted the  bishoprics  in  the  countries  he  conquered  among 
his  own  followers  without  its  sanction.  He  was  about 
to  cross  the  Alps  to  aid  the  Pope,  when  he  was  over- 
taken by  death.  His  astute  son  Pepin  saw  at  once  how 
he  could  gain  advantage  by  ministering  to  the  Pope's 


80  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

necessities.  No  doubt  he  valued  highly  the  Pope's 
declaration  to  him  that  he  who  held  the  royal  power 
might  well  hold  the  royal  title,  and  thus  the  deposition 
of  Childerie,  the  first  consecration  of  Pepin  by  St.  Bon- 
iface by  order  of  the  Pope,  the  journey  of  Stephen  II. 
across  the  Alps  for  the  purpose  of  imploring  the  aid 
of  the  great  King  of  the  Franks,  the  bestowal  of  the 
Roman  diadem,  and  the  Hebrew  anointing  of  the 
chief  who  had  been  raised  upon  a  buckler  and  saluted 
by  his  trusty  companions  after  the  manner  of  the 
Franks  as  their  king,  became  the  price  paid  by  the 
Pope  for  the  alliance  with  the  Franks,  and  was  the  be- 
ginning of  a  system,  more  thoroughly  organized  under 
Charlemagne,  by  which  the  Pope's  supremacy  was  as- 
sured beyond  peradventure. 

The  Pope's  position  at  this  time  was  one  of  very  great 
embarrassment.  Harassed  by  the  Lombards,  who  were 
not  only  robbers,  but  who  were  also  Arians,  and  who 
admitted  none  of  the  Catholic  clergy  to  their  councils, — 
with  no  succor  from  the  Emperors  at  Constantinople 
(whose  subject  he  nominally  was)  against  the  Lombards, 
and,  indeed,  in  open  revolt  against  them  because  as 
bishop  and  patriarch  of  the  West  he  had  forbidden  the 
execution  of  the  decree  against  the  placing  of  images 
in  the  churches, — for  these  and  many  such  reasons  he 
sorely  needed  succor,  and  naturally  in  his  necessity  he 
turned  to  the  powerful  King  of  the  Franks.  The  coro- 
nation of  Pepin  le  Bref,  first  by  St.  Boniface,  and  then 
by  the  Pope  himself,  was  the  first  step  in  the  fulfilment 


PEPIN  PATRICIAN  OF  ROME.  81 

of  the  alliance  on  his  part.  Pepin  was  soon  called  upon 
to  do  his  share  of  the  work.  Twice  at  the  bidding  of 
the  Pope  he  descended  from  the  Alps,  and,  defeating 
the  Lombards,  was  rewarded  by  him  and  the  people  of 
Rome  with  the  title  of  Patrician.  This  title,  which  had 
been  considered  in  the  latter  days  of  the  Empire  little 
inferior  in  dignity  to  that  of  Emperor  or  Consul,  had 
sunk  with  other  things  in  the  general  decline  so  low 
that  it  seems  to  have  meant  in  the  time  of  Pepin  little 
more  than  that  of  the  defender  or  protector  of  the  city 
of  Rome,  where  the  ancient  municipal  spirit  and  power 
were  not  wholly  extinct. 

This  succor  of  Pepin  was  the  first  substantial  material 
aid  given  by  the  Frankish  monarchs  to  the  Popes.  But 
more  was  to  follow.  On  the  death  of  Pepin,  the  Lom- 
bards again  took  up  arms  and  harassed  the  Church's 
territory.  Charlemagne,  his  successor,  was  called  upon 
to  come  to  the  rescue,  and  he  swept  the  Lombard  power 
in  Italy  out  of  existence,  annexing  its  territory  to  the 
Frankish  kingdom,  and  confirming  the  grant  of  the 
Exarchate  and  of  the  Pentapolis  to  the  Popes  which  his 
father  had  made.  This  was  in  the  year  774.  Such 
was  the  first  act  in  that  mighty  drama,  the  outcome  of 
which  was  to  be  that  alliance  of  Church  and  State  in 
Western  Europe  which  was  to  color  all  subsequent  his- 
tory. For  twenty-five  years  Charlemagne  ruled  Rome 
nominally  as  Patrician,  under  the  supremacy,  equally 
nominal,  of  the  Emperor  at  Constantinople.  The  true 
sovereign,  recognized  as  such,  was  the  Pope  or  Bishop 


82  MEDIAEVAL   HISTORY. 

of  Rome,  but  the  actual  power  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
mob,  who  at  one  time  towards  the  close  of  the  century, 
in  the  absence  of  both  Emperor  and  Patrician,  assaulted 
the  Pope  while  conducting  a  procession,  and  forced  him 
to  abandon  the  city.  This  Pope,  Leo,  with  a  fine  in- 
stinct as  to  the  quarter  from  which  succor  could  alone 
come,  hurried  to  seek  Charlemagne,  who  was  then  in 
Germany  engaged  in  one  of  his  never-ending  wars 
against  the  Saxons.  The  appeal  for  aid  was  not  made 
in  vain,  and  Charles  descended  once  more  from  the  Alps 
in  the  summer  of  799,  with  his  Frankish  hosts.  On 
Christmas  day,  A.D.  800,  in  the  Church  of  St.  Peter 
(not  the  modern  temple,  due  to  the  genius  of  Michael 
Angelo,  but  one  then  more  truly  recalling  Rome's 
proudest  days,  in  the  form  of  the  ancient  Greek  basilica 
or  court-house),  Pope  Leo,  during  the  mass,  and  after 
the  reading  of  the  gospel,  placed  upon  the  brow  of 
Charlemagne,  who  had  abandoned  his  Northern  furs 
for  the  dress  of  a  Roman  patrician,  the  diadem  of  the 
Csesars,  and  hailed  him  Imperalor  Semper  Augustus, 
while  the  multitude  shouted,  "  Carolo  Augusto  a  Deo 
coronato  magno  et pacifieo  Imperatori  Vita  et  Victoria" 
In  that  shout  and  from  that  moment  one  of  the  most 
fruitful  epochs  of  history  begins.  We  shall  trace  its 
ever-present  influence  along  the  whole  course  of  the 
history  which  we  are  to  follow.* 

*  I  am  indebted  to  Prof.  Bryce's  admirable  work,  "  The  Holy 
Eoman  Empire,"  for  this  account  of  the  coronation  of  Charle- 
magne and  its  significance  in  mediaeval  history. 


THEORY  OF  THE  EMPIRE.  83 

Perhaps  there  never  was  a  grander  and  more  compre- 
hensive scheme  of  government  propounded  by  statesmen 
for  the  ruling  of  the  world,  and  one  which,  on  the 
whole,  responded  so  fully  to  the  design  of  its  founders. 
It  had  its  basis  in  the  profound  convictions  of  the 
greatest  thinkers  of  the  mediaeval  time  that  there  were 
two  principles,  and  two  only,  upon  which  the  rightful 
government  of  mankind  could  be  settled, — law  and  re- 
ligion ;  and  they  believed  they  had  found  the  only  true 
exponents  of  these  principles  in  the  Roman  law  and  the 
Christian  Church.'  The  belief  in  the  first  was  not  a 
mere  attachment  to  a  tradition  of  Roman  greatness,  any 
more  than  faith  in  the  other  depended  upon  their  ardent 
desire  for  the  universal  rule  of  the  Church  in  the  future. 
But  it  was  rather  that  this  combination  formed  their 
highest  ideal  of  human  life  and  human  society.  To 
them  law  and  religion  were  the  pillars  upon  which  all 
true  life  is  built,  and  they  formed  the  only  cohesive 
power  of  human  society  when  force,  which  is  the  nega- 
tion of  law  as  it  is  of  reason,  is  discarded.  In  Imperial 
Rome  the  functions  of  the  head  of  the  law  and  the 
head  of  religion  had  been  inseparably  united  in  one 
person.  The  Emperor  was  always  both  Imperator 
Semper  Augustus  and  Pontifex  Maximus.  But  when 
Leo  and  Charlemagne  designed,  as  they  said,  to  revive 
the  Western  Roman  Empire,  three  hundred  and  twenty- 
four  years  after  the  last  Caesar  of  the  West  had  left 
to  his  Eastern  brother  at  Constantinople  the  sole  head- 
ship of  the  world,  it  was  impossible  so  to  restore  that 


84  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

organization  that  the  unity  of  law  and  religion  should 
be  represented  by  the  same  person.  The  principle,  how- 
ever, of  absolute  unity  was  maintained,  although  the 
world-monarchy  and  the  world-religion  were  hereafter 
to  be  governed  by  two  different  persons,  the  one  called 
the  Emperor  and  the  other  the  Pope.  They  were  to 
be  in  the  closest  possible  relations,  supporting  each 
other  mutually  in  all  their  designs.  According  to  this 
theory,  the  Emperor  could  not  lawfully  exist  unless 
crowned  by  the  Pope,  any  more  than  the  Pope  could 
become  such  without  the  consent  of  the  Emperor.  He 
was  to  be  the  champion,  advocate,  and  defender  of  the 
Church,  and  his  business  was  to  extend  its  limits,  to 
protect  it  in  its  privileges,  and  to  support  it  in  the  exer- 
cise of  its  powers.  The  Holy  llomau  Church  and  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  according  to  the  mediaeval  theory, 
were  the  same  thing  in  two  aspects :  as  divine  and  eter- 
nal the  Pope  was  the  head  of  the  Church,  as  human  and 
temporal  the  Emperor  was  commissioned  to  rule  men's 
bodies  and  acts  so  as  to  conform  them  to  the  divine 
law  as  established  by  the  Church.  Of  course,  vulgar 
motives  of  aggrandizement,  and  even  prudential  motives 
of  safety,  both  on  the  part  of  the  Pope  and  the  Em- 
peror, had  their  place  when  this  extraordinary  scheme 
for  the  government  of  Europe  was  instituted.  And  yet 
undoubtedly  a  love  of  law  and  order  and  peace,  founded 
on  religion,  as  essential  to  the  prosperity  and  safety  of 
the  race,  was  the  governing  motive  of  those  who  knew 
by  personal  experience,  when  they  advocated  the  revival 


CHARLEMAGNE'S   CONQUESTS.  85 

of  this  Roman  system  of  law,  what  anarchy  was.  That 
system,  with  all  its  faults,  had  at  any  rate  assured  peace 
and  reasonable  safety  to  the  human  race  for  a  longer 
time  than  any  other.  The  theory  on  which  the  scheme 
was  based  seems  to  us  rather  like  the  dreams  of  Plato 
than  the  work  of  the  Churchmen  and  rude  barbarians 
of  a  most  calamitous  period  in  history.  If  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire  was  not  destined  to  check  fully,  as  it 
was  designed,  the  flood  of  barbarism  which  constantly 
poured  over  Europe,  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  the 
scheme  of  a  universal  monarchy  and  a  universal  religion 
is  one  of  the  most  persistent  in  history.  We  shall  meet 
it  again  and  again,  not  merely  in  the  mediaeval  era,  but 
in  modern  times,  and  we  shall  find  that  there  is  scarcely 
any  event  from  which  more  momentous  consequences 
have  flowed  than  the  coronation  of  Charlemagne  by  the 
Pope. 

In  treating  of  the  causes  of  that  great  historical  event, 
the  alliance  of  the  family  of  Charlemagne  with  the  Pope 
and  the  Church,  in  their  logical  order,  I  have  antici- 
pated much  of  the  history  of  the  life  of  Charlemagne 
which  made  that  alliance  so  fruitful  of  results.  Charle- 
magne became  the  Emperor  of  the  new  Holy  Roman 
Empire  not  merely  because  he  was  orthodox  and  be- 
cause it  was  essential  to  his  own  interests  that  he  should 
maintain  the  orthodox  faith  with  its  fullest  organiza- 
tion in  his  dominions,  but  also  because,  in  the  year 
800,  he  ruled  over  a  larger  portion  of  the  territory  of 
Europe  than  any  Roman  Emperor  had  ever  done.  His 


86  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

dominion  extended  from  the  river  Elbe  to  the  river 
Ebro,  in  Spain,  and  from  the  southern  point  of  Italy 
to  the  German  Ocean.  It  would  be  wearisome  to  give 
a  detailed  account  of  the  wars  by  which  the  territory 
which  did  not  come  to  him  from  his  father  was  ac- 
quired. He  conquered  during  his  reign  of  forty-four 
years  (769-813)  not  merely  the  stubborn  tribes  in  Ger- 
many, the  Frisians,  the  Saxons,  the  Thuringians,  and  the 
Bavarians,  who  had  so  long  threatened  with  invasion  the 
Frankish  dominions  (and  it  required  thirty-three  succes- 
sive campaigns  to  accomplish  this  object),  but  also  the 
Slavonians  beyond  the  Elbe,  the  Avars  in  Hungary,  the 
Lombards  in  Italy,  and  the  Saracens  in  Spain.  In  all, 
he  made  fifty-three  warlike  expeditions;  and  yet,  strange 
to  say,  he  appears  to  his  modern  admirers  not  as  a  mere 
conqueror  for  ambition's  sake,  as  Hannibal  and  Alex- 
ander the  Great  in  the  ancient  world,  and  Frederick  the 
Great  and  Napoleon  in  the  modern,  but  as  guided  on  the 
whole  by  a  truly  defensive  policy,  his  real  object  being 
in  his  rude  way  to  restore  permanently  that  peace  and 
order  of  which  the  world  stood  so  much  in  need,  and  by 
which  it  was  the  fond  dream  of  the  time  it  had  once  been 
governed.  He  knew  but  one  way  to  bring  about  this 
result :  first,  by  seeking  these  wild  tribes  in  their  own 
forests  in  Germany,  and  crippling  there  their  power  of 
invading  and  plundering  his  dominions,  and,  secondly, 
by  converting  them  to  Christianity ;  and  the  sword  was 
regarded  as  an  equally  efficient  weapon  in  both  cases. 
The  wars  in  which  Charlemagne  was  engaged  seem  to 


RESEMBLANCE    TO    OTHER   CONQUERORS    S~ 

have  been,  as  I  have  said,  carried  on  as  national  acts, 
and  not  merely  from  a  desire  to  gratify  personal  am- 
bition. It  seems  strange  to  us  to  find  Charlemagne 
propagating  Christianity  by  giving  the  German  tribes 
the  alternative  of  belief  or  death  by  drowning,  and 
yet  even  we  may  understand  that  it  was  a  statesman- 
like way  of  protecting  his  own  frontiers  from  invasion. 
To  achieve  what  he  did,  he  must  have  possessed  almost 
superhuman  activity  and  inflexible  perseverance.  It  is 
said  that  a  truly  great  man  is  one  who  has  the  loftiest 
conceptions  of  policy  with  the  most  painstaking  atten- 
tion to  details  in  carrying  it  out.  This  loftiness  of  the 
ideal  and  the  attention  to  details  must  exist  in  combi- 
nation to  produce  the  proper  result.  Such  a  peculiarity 
was  eminently  characteristic  of  Charlemagne,  as  it  was 
of  Julius  Caesar  before,  and  of  Napoleon  (who  always 
claimed  the  power  and  prerogatives  of  Charlemagne) 
after  him. 

There  are  other  resemblances  between  Napoleon  and 
Charlemagne  which  are  very  striking,  and  some  account 
of  them  may  help  us  to  understand  better  the  great  Em- 
peror. They  both,  for  instance,  made  war  support  itself; 
that  is,  they  took  the  resources  of  the  conquered  coun- 
tries to  feed  their  armies.  Charlemagne  never  paid  his 
troops,  nor  provided  for  their  needs;  war  was  their  busi- 
ness, their  passion,  and  their  means  of  living.  So,  in 
their  campaigns,  each  of  these  conquerors  strove  to  rouse 
the  feeling  of  the  population  of  the  countries  they  in- 
vaded against  their  rulers,  so  that  they  might  gain  their 


88  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

ends  by  keeping  alive  such  enmities.  Divide  and  con- 
quer, was  their  motto.  In  urging  the  Poles  and  Italians 
to  aid  him  in  his  wars  in  their  countries,  Napoleon  was 
only  strictly  following  the  example  of  Charlemagne, 
who  appealed  to  the  down-trodden  old  races  of  Italy 
and  Spain  to  rise  against  the  Lombards  and  the  Sara- 
cens. The  parallel  between  these  mighty  men  might 
be  extended  to  other  things,  both  to  those  in  which  they 
failed  and  to  those  in  which  they  succeeded.  It  cer- 
tainly is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  a  man  who  was  the 
master  of  the  larger  portion  of  the  territory  of  Europe, 
and  who  had  conquered  it  from  the  motives  and  by  the 
policy  which  we  have  described,  should  desire  to  consoli- 
date this  rule  in  such  a  way  as  to  mould  the  destiny  of 
Europe  for  all  time  by  that  policy,  and  that  he  should 
have  regarded  the  Roman  Imperial  system,  modified  by 
the  papacy,  as  the  best  means  of  accomplishing  his  pur- 
pose. Certainly  nothing  is  greater  about  Charlemagne 
or  his  age  than  this  grand  scheme  of  securing  peace  with 
order  to  the  troubled  world.  If  there  was  any  hope 
at  that  time  for  the  world,  discoverable  by  the  most 
penetrating  foresight  or  the  most  ardent  philanthropy, 
it  lay  in  the  revival  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

What  means  did  Charlemagne  adopt  for  ruling  his 
vast  possessions  ?  and  upon  what  grounds  does  his  fame 
as  a  great  legislator  and  administrator  rest?  We  must 
remember  always  that  he  ruled  in  a  double  capacity,  not 
merely  as  King  of  the  Franks,  but  also,  at  least  after  the 
year  800,  as  head  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  Much 


CHARLEMAGNE  AS  EMPEROR  AND  KING.  89 

of  the  machinery  of  his  legislation  can  only  be  properly 
understood  by  keeping  in  mind  its  double  purpose.  It 
is  not  easy  to  draw  the  line  and  say  where  his  work  as 
King  of  the  Franks  ended  and  that  as  Emperor  began. 
The  three  great  interests  which  he  guarded  especially 
seem  to  have  been  those  of  race,  territory,  and  religion. 
To  insure  the  stability  of  his  policy  in  the  Fraukish 
kingdom  was,  no  doubt,  the  chief  end  of  the  super- 
human activity  he  displayed.  But  his  work  in  striving 
to  introduce  among  the  wild  savages  east  of  the  Elbe  the 
beginnings  at  least  of  an  orderly  government  and  some 
notions  of  Christianity,  the  substitution  of  his  own  rule 
for  that  of  the  Lombards  and  the  Greeks  in  Italy,  his 
maintenance  of  the  frontier  in  Spain  against  the  assaults 
of  the  Saracens,  and,  above  all,  his  hearty  co-operation 
with  the  Church  in  its  efforts  to  follow  up  his  conquests 
by  extending  its  influence, — all  these  things,  perhaps, 
fall  strictly  within  what  he  considered  as  the  proper 
sphere  of  his  functions  as  Roman  Emperor.  But  his 
work  as  the  German  King  was  quite  as  remarkable,  as 
is  proved  by  the  complicated  machinery  of  his  legisla- 
tion. His  capital  and  principal  residence  was  at  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  near  Cologne.  We  must  disabuse  our  minds 
of  the  idea  that  Charlemagne,  because  his  people  were 
called  Franks,  was  in  any  sense,  or  rather  in  the  modern 
sense,  French.  He  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  French, 
except  as  their  conqueror.  He  was  a  German  of  the 
Germans.  He  was,  moreover,  in  his  own  estimation, 
the  world-monarch,  from  whom  all  earthly  power  was 


00  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

derived.  His  local  government — that  is,  in  his  Ger- 
man domains — was  administered  by  officers  called,  indif- 
ferently, dukes,  counts,  vicars,  scabini  (echevins) ;  and 
their  business  was,  in  thorough  subordination  to  the 
master,  to  raise  troops,  to  dispense  justice,  to  maintain 
order,  to  gather  the  tribute,  each  within  an  allotted  dis- 
trict. Besides  these,  there  were  certain  beneficiaries  to 
whom  lands  had  been  granted  in  various  portions  of  the 
territory  with  the  stipulation  that  they  should  aid  the 
king  in  his  government  and  his  wars,  and  who,  unlike 
the  feudal  lords,  as  most  of  their  descendants  became  in 
due  time,  were  not  only  legally  but  actually  under  the 
absolute  control  of  the  king.  The  marks  or  frontiers 
of  the  kingdom  were  governed  by  counts  specially 
appointed. 

To  these  officers  was  added  another  class  with  peculiar 
functions.  They  were  called  missi  dominici,  or  inspec- 
tors, appointed  by  the  king,  whose  business  it  was  to 
travel  into  the  different  portions  of  his  empire  with 
authority  to  ascertain  whether  his  orders  had  been  ob- 
served, and  generally  to  correct  abuses  in  the  adminis- 
tration. There  were  also  national  assemblies  held  every 
year  after  the  manner  of  the  ancient  Franks,  called 
Champs  de  Mars,  or  later  de  Mai.  These  were  gener- 
ally held  at  some  central  point  in  the  kingdom,  near  the 
Rhine,  and  were  attended  by  the  freemen,  who  deliber- 
ated in  two  bodies,  one  composed  of  the  higher  nobility 
and  clergy,  and  the  other  of  those  of  lower  rank.  Ex- 
actly how  far  these  assemblies  controlled  the  legislation 


HIS  LEGISLATION.  91 

of  the  kingdom  is  uncertain.  It  would  appear  that 
they  were  regarded  by  Charlemagne  merely  as  an  ad- 
visory body,  from  whom,  especially,  information  was  to 
be  gained  by  which  his  own  action  was  to  be  guided. 
In  the  legislation  of  that  time,  as  in  its  wars,  however, 
Charlemagne  is  always  the  central  figure.  That  legisla- 
tion is  known  to  us  as  preserved  in  the  Capitularies  of 
Charlemagne,  the  word  capitula  being  applied  to  the 
laws,  decrees,  or  edicts,  which  were  issued  under  his 
authority.  During  his  reign  of  forty-four  years  no 
less  than  eleven  hundred  and  twenty-six  such  capitula 
or  distinct  laws — six  hundred  and  twenty-one  relating 
to  civil  and  four  hundred  and  fifteen  to  religious  legis- 
lation, and  nearly  one  hundred  to  other  subjects  of  public 
interest — were  issued,  more  or  less  founded  on  the  advice 
and  consent  of  the  representatives  of  the  nation  in  their 
yearly  assemblies.  These  capitula  form  a  living  picture 
of  the  society,  civil,  military,  ecclesiastical,  and  moral, 
which  gave  them  birth.  It  is  impossible  here  to  give 
any  detailed  or  satisfactory  account  (and  no  account 
would  be  satisfactory  unless  it  were  in  detail)  of  the 
spirit  of  this  legislation.  Many  of  these  capitularies 
have  been  preserved,  and  I  must  refer  those  who  desire 
more  particularly  to  examine  their  character  to  M. 
Guizot's  third  volume  of  his  History  of  Civilization 
in  France.  The  impression  made  by  such  an  exami- 
nation must  be,  I  think,  that,  considering  the  circum- 
stances of  the  time,  both  before  and  after  this  era, 
the  capacity  for  such  enlightened  legislation  as  is  found 


92  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

in  these  capitularies,  relating  both  to  the  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  affairs  of  the  Empire,  is  little  less  than  mar- 
vellous. Certainly  they  show  that  Charlemagne  was  not 
only  one  of  the  greatest  conquerors  but  also  one  of  the 
greatest  law-givers  the  world  has  ever  known.  It  may 
be  interesting  to  remember  that  Napoleon,  in  this  re- 
spect, resembled  his  great  prototype,  for  he  is  said  to 
have  been  prouder  of  his  share  in  preparing  the  Frencli 
civil  code  than  of  all  his  victories. 

Charlemagne's  title  to  greatness — a  title  inseparably 
affixed  by  his  contemporaries  and  by  posterity  to  his 
very  name — does  not  rest  merely  upon  his  having  been 
a  great  warrior  and  a  great  statesman,  but  also  upon 
his  having  been  the  most  powerful  advocate  of  the 
promotion  of  human  learning  the  world  has  ever 
known.  We  hear  it  said  that  Charlemagne  could  not 
write  his  own  name;  yet  he  composed  Latin  verses 
well,  and  the  epitaph  (in  Latin)  upon  his  friend  Pope 
Adrian  is  one  of  the  best  of  its  kind  so  far  as  the 
Latinity  is  concerned.  It  is  commonly  said,  too,  that 
Charlemagne  founded  the  university  system  of  modern 
Europe;  however  that  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  he 
established  the  schools  attached  to  his  own  palace  and 
to  the  cathedrals  and  monasteries,  from  which  the 
modern  university  sprang.  His  friends  and  compan- 
ions were  among  the  most  learned  and  enlightened  men 
of  the  time,  and  their  affectionate  remembrance  has 
preserved  for  us  a  more  living  and  real  portrait  of  this 
wonderful  man  than  we  have  of  any  one  else  who  lived 


PATRON  OF  LEARNING.  93 

a  thousand  years  ago.  His  principal  agent  in  his  plans 
for  the  encouragement  of  learning,  his  intellectual  prime 
minister,  so  to  speak,  was  Alcuin,  an  Englishman,  bred 
in  the  cathedral  school  in  York,  and  for  long  years  a 
celebrated  teacher  there.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that 
in  those  days  of  the  decay  of  the  old  civilization  on  the 
continent,  caused  by  wars  and  invasions,  Ireland,  Scot- 
land, and  the  North  of  England  seem  to  have  been  the 
only  places  of  refuge  in  Europe  for  learned  men.  All 
the  more  distinguished  early  missionaries  came,  as  is 
known,  from  these  islands,  principally  from  the  monastic 
schools  of  Ireland  and  Scotland,  and  Alcuin,  who  was 
a  scholar  of  the  very  highest  order,  was  induced  by 
Charlemagne  to  enter  his  service  as  early  as  769. 

We  may,  I  suppose,  look  upon  the  work  of  this  great 
man  at  the  court  of  Charlemagne  as  showing  what  was 
considered  the  highest  form  of  human  learning  at  that 
era,  as  well  as  the  class  of  persons  to  whom  it  was  taught. 
It  seems  that  Alcuin  established  his  school  in  the  Em- 
peror's palace,  by  his  request,  where  he  gave  instruction 
in  grammar,  rhetoric,  jurisprudence,  poetry,  astronomy, 
natural  history,  mathematics,  and  the  explanation  of 
'  the  Holy  Scriptures ;  and  that  among  his  scholars  were 
not  only  the  Emperor  himself,  but  his  children  also, 
— boys  and  girls, — some  of  his  privy  councillors,  and 
at  least  two  bishops.  Besides  this,  he  corrected  and 
restored  the  text  of  ancient  manuscripts,  which  had 
been  much  defaced  by  ignorant  transcribers.  He  gave 
particular  attention  to  the  revision  of  the  text  of  the 


94  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

Holy  Scriptures,  a  revision  adopted  by  Charlemagne 
and  ordered  by  him  to  be  made  the  standard  text 
throughout  his  dominions.  It  is  difficult  to  say  whether 
Charlemagne  delighted  most  iu  warlike  deeds  or  in  his 
intercourse  with  learned  men,  in  restoring  manuscripts, 
and  thus  providing  proper  materials  for  study,  in  re- 
establishing schools,  which  had  everywhere  gone  to 
decay,  or  in  converting  the  heathen  Saxons. 

There  is  a  Charlemagne  of  history,  a  Charlemagne  of 
legendary  and  popular  fame,  above  all  a  Charlemagne 
of  poetry,  the  type  of  the  perfect  Christian  knight 
who,  with  the  famous  Roland  and  his  twelve  Paladins, 
fought  against  the  Moslem  in  Roncesvalles.  Through- 
out the  Middle  Age  we  hear  constantly 

"the  blast  of  that  wild  horn, 
On  Fontarabian  echoes  borne, 

The  dying  hero's  call, 
That  told  imperial  Charlemagne 
How  Paynim  sons  of  swarthy  Spain 

Had  wrought  his  champion's  fall." 

He  was  thus  the  ideal  hero  of  his  age,  and  he  was  looked 
upon  during  the  Middle  Age  as  the  great  restorer  of 
whatever  was  true  and  valuable  in  Roman  civilization. 
Even  in  this  critical  day  his  figure  seems  to  those  who 
carefully  consider  it  as  so  imposing  that  no  man,  per- 
haps, who  ever  lived  has  been  regarded  by  so  many 
historians,  ever  since  his  time,  as  exhibiting  the  highest 
type  of  greatness  in  so  many  different  departments  of 
human  activity.  He  shines  out,  too,  perhaps,  all  the 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF  HIS  RULE.  95 

more  brilliantly  as  he  was  the  one  bright  star  of  a 
very  dark  night.  Both  theologians  and  the  writers  of 
history,  whether  they  consider  modern  European  society 
founded  upon  an  aristocratic  or  a  popular  basis,  regard 
him  as  the  incarnation  of  wisdom  and  of  equity.  Mon- 
tesquieu says  of  him,  "He  was  great  as  a  prince,  but 
still  greater  as  a  man.  No  one  who  ever  lived  better 
understood  the  art  of  doing  great  things  with  ease, 
or  difficult  things  with  promptitude."  Says  another 
writer,  "  Charlemagne  was  a  civilizing  hero  like  Alex- 
ander the  Great.  'Alexander  made  the  East  Greek, 
and  Charlemagne  the  West  Latin.  They  both  worked 
for  future  ages,  and  the  fire  they  lighted  will  never  be 
extinguished." 

But,  brilliant  as  was  the  civilization  which  this  gr.eat 
man  tried  to  establish  in  Europe,  and  profound  as  has 
been  the  recognition  of  his  merits  by  posterity,  we  must 
not  forget  that  there  is  another  side  of  the  picture, 
which  we  should  study  if  we  desire  to  gain  an  accurate 
idea  of  the  practical  value  of  the  work  of  Charlemagne. 
We  must  see  not  only  what  he  did,  but  also  what  he 
did  not,  or,  rather,  how  far  success  attended  his  world- 
embracing  schemes.  In  the  first  place,  then,  his  central 
or  Imperial  system  failed.  It  scarcely  lasted  longer  than 
his  own  life.  There  were  many  reasons  now  very  ap- 
parent for  this,  but  it  must  suffice  to  name  one  which, 
in  fact,  includes  them  all,  and  that  is,  that  the  Teutonic 
tribes  were  wholly  unfitted  for  a  system  of  administra- 
tion which  had,  even  among  the  comparatively  civilized 


96  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

Romans,  ended  by  eating  out,  like  a  cancer,  the  sources 
of  their  national  life. 

In  his  attempt  to  introduce  such  a  system  among  rude 
tribes  just  emerged  from  barbarism,  Charlemagne  en- 
tered into  a  conflict  with  the  nature  of  man  itself.  He 
was  not  satisfied  to  bring  his  own  hereditary  dominions 
under  the  rule  of  peace  and  order,  but  he  exhibited,  in  a 
marked  degree,  that  characteristic  which  has  been  domi- 
nant in  all  the  great  rulers  of  mankind,  whether  they 
be  called  Alexander,  Mohammed,  or  Napoleon, — viz., 
a  rage  for  uniformity,  which  has  been  always  inseparable 
from  their  ideal  conception  of  public  order  and  good 
government.  All  such  attempts  have  failed,  and,  from 
the  very  nature  of  man,  must  fail.  Ideal  reconstruc- 
tions of  society  on  such  a  basis  have  never  succeeded. 
Hence,  when  his  mighty  hand  was  removed,  the  central 
authority,  the  national  assemblies,  the  missi  dominivi, 
all  the  complicated  machinery  of  the  Imperial  system, 
having  no  other  support,  fell  also,  while  the  dukes,  the 
counts,  the  vicars,  the  centenniers,  remained,  with  totally 
different  functions,  under  the  decentralized  rule  which 
followed. 

But,  it  will  be  asked,  did  Charlemagne  do  nothing 
which  remained  for  posterity  and  which  was  productive 
of  permanent  results  in  the  history  of  Europe  ?  Not  to 
repeat  here  what  I  have  already  insisted  upon  at  length, 
— that  he  finally  rescued  Europe  from  barbarism  and 
helped  forward  the  fusion  of  the  Teutonic  type  of  civ- 
ilization with  that  of  the  Roman, — his  Empire,  broken 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  HIS  RULE.  97 

into  separate  states  shortly  after  his  death,  was  resolved 
into  a  multitude  of  local  sovereignties.  Yet  even  in 
these,  far  on  in  the  Middle  Age,  while  his  policy  of 
centralization  was  abandoned  as  impossible,  the  civil- 
izing influences  of  his  rule  and  his  example  were  never 
forgotten.  Before  his  time,  the  frontiers  of  Germany, 
Spain,  and  Italy  were  constantly  fluctuating,  in  itself  a 
symptom  of  the  restlessness  of  barbarism,  while  after 
his  reign  states  more  or  less  organized,  and  with  fron- 
tiers more  or  less  recognized,  such  as  the  kingdoms  of 
Lorraine,  of  Germany,  of  Italy,  and  the  two  Burgun- 
dies, fulfilled  the  conditions  of  communities  measurably 
well  governed  and  civilized. 

Charlemagne  is  more  especially  the  founder  of  mod- 
ern Germany.  His  influence,  not  only  as  the  King  of 
the  Franks,  but  as  Roman  Emperor,  is  the  source  of 
much  that  is  characteristic  in  the  history  of  that  coun- 
try ;  and  as  we  go  on  with  our  studies  in  that  history  we 
shall  find  that  the  influence  and  example  of  a  truly 
great  man  are  among  the  few  things  which  never  die. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

MOHAMMED    AND    HIS    SYSTEM    IN    THE    MIDDLE   AGE. 

No  view  of  mediaeval  history  can  be  satisfactory  which 
does  not  embrace  a  sketch,  at  least,  of  the  life  and  doctrines 
of  Mohammed  and  of  the  rapid  and  extensive  conquests 
of  his  successors.  The  great  social  forces  are  mainly  de- 
pendent, as  history  shows  us,  upon  peculiarities  of  race 
and  religion.  The  history  of  the  mediaeval  age,  as  has 
been  explained,  is  essentially  one  of  the  conflict  of  dif- 
ferent races  and  of  opposite  religious  ideas  and  systems. 
It  seems  at  first  a  strange  paradox  to  assert  that  mod- 
ern history  and  modern  civilization  grew  out  of  this 
very  conflict.  The  result  of  the  struggle  was  not  the  ex- 
haustion, as  so  often  happens,  of  the  opposing  forces,  nor 
even  the  presence  of  different  races  on  the  same  territory, 
each  maintaining  a  distinct  and  separate  life,  with  a  mu- 
tual toleration  of  different  religious  beliefs,  but  rather  an 
assimilation,  gradual,  but  complete.  We  have  studied 
the  nature  of  this  process  in  Central  Europe  after  the 
fall  of  the  Western  Empire  in  476, — the  fusion,  as  we 
have  called  it,  of  the  Roman  with  the  barbarian,  of  the 
Christian  with  the  heathen;  and  from  this  fusion  we 
have  endeavored  to  deduce  the  characteristic  features  of 
the  typical  modern  European,  and  to  recognize  in  this 

slow  process  the  true  source  of  all  modern  history. 
98 


BARBARIAN  AND  SARACENIC  IDEAS.       99 

But,  while  our  inquiries  have  led  us  hitherto  to  ob- 
serve almost  exclusively  the  successive  steps  in  this  work 
of  assimilation  and  fusion  in  Europe,  we  have  now 
reached  a  period  where  a  conflict  of  races  and  creeds  pro- 
.  duced  a  totally  opposite  result.  In  our  study  of  the 
history  of  the  Saracens  we  shall  find  these  same  elements 
of  conflict,  race  and  religion,  but  always  repelling,  never 
attracting  each  other.  The  Semitic  and  the  Aryan,  the 
Christian  and  the  Moslem,  have  been  from  the  beginning, 
as  they  are  now,  irreconcilable  enemies.  Our  study  of 
the  conquests  of  -the  Saracens,  unlike  that  of  the  con- 
quests of  the  Northern  barbarians,  will  not  show  us,  as  in 
Central  Europe,  Christianity  strengthened  and  purified 
and  the  true  principles  of  civilization  consolidated  by  the 
struggle  for  mastery,  but  rather  Christendom  despoiled 
by  violence  of  lands  around  the  basin  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean, where  the  gospel  was  first  planted.  There  it 
achieved  its  earliest  and  most  signal  triumphs,  and  in 
the  eastern  portion  of  that  region  Greek  and  Roman 
civilization  have  long  been  replaced  by  some  of  the  most 
characteristic  forms  of  Oriental  despotism. 

The  Saracenic  invasions  of  Christendom  differed  from 
those  of  other  formidable  non-Christian  people — such 
as  those  of  the  Huns  and  Mongols,  for  instance — in 
this,  that  the  Saracens  settled  down  and  remained  per- 
manently for  ages  in  the  conquered  lands  and  established 
in  them  their  peculiar  civilization  and  religion.  So  far 
as  I  know,  they  have  never  lost  that  sort  of  control  given 
by  their  religion  and  their  special  Orientalism  in  any 


100  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

country  they  ever  conquered,  save  Spain;  and  it  required 
eight  hundred  years  to  drive  them  out  of  that  land, 
Catholic  par  excellence.  Conquests  in  history  like  those 
of  Alexander,  or  of  Charlemagne,  or  of  Napoleon,  or 
even  of  Rome  itself,  are  usually  so  exhausting  to  the 
conquering  nation  that  the  rule  they  establish  soon  falls 
to  pieces  after  the  mighty  hand  of  the  conqueror  has  been 
removed.  But  the  successors  of  Mohammed  conquered 
a  larger  territory  in  fourscore  years  than  Rome  did 
in  four  hundred,  and  utterly  supplanted  and  effaced, 
wherever  they  went,  that  form  of  civilization  founded 
upon  Christianity  and  Roman  law.  Their  race  and 
their  religion  always  proved  insurmountable  barriers 
to  any  fusion  with  the  Christian  people  of  the  lands 
they  subdued.  The  long  duration  and  the  extensive 
sway  of  the  Moslems  are,  therefore,  among  the  marvels 
of  history. 

There  is  no  romance  equal  in  interest  to  the  simple 
story  of  the  early  Saracenic  conquests,  for  nowhere  do 
the  results  seem  so  out  of  all  proportion  with  the  means 
used  to  achieve  them,  and  those  results  changed  perma- 
nently the  face  of  the  whole  world.  "  Within  the  life- 
time of  many  an  aged  Arab,"  says  Irving,  "the  Sara- 
cens extended  their  empire  and  their  faith  over  the  wide 
regions  of  Asia  and  Africa,  subverting  the  empire  of 
Chosroes,  King  of  Persia,  subjugating  great  territories  in 
India,  establishing  a  splendid  seat  of  power  in  Syria,  dic- 
tating to  the  conquered  kingdom  of  the  Pharaohs,  over- 
running the  whole  northern  coast  of  Africa,  scouring 


AMBITION  OF  THE  MOHAMMEDANS.     101 

the  Mediterranean  with  their  ships,  carrying  their  con- 
quests in  one  direction  to  the  very  walls  of  Constantino- 
ple, and  in  another  to  the  extreme  limits  of  Mauritania, 
the  modern  Morocco  and  the  ancient  country  of  Jugur- 
tha  and  Micipsa, — in  a  word,  trampling  down  all  the 
old  dynasties  which  once  held  haughty  and  magnificent 
sway  in  the  East."  And  this  was  the  beginning  only  of 
their  career.  In  a  few  years  afterwards  they  had  con- 
quered all  Spain,  save  the  northern  mountainous  districts, 
and  had  overrun  that  portion  of  modern  France  south 
of  the  Loire  and 'west  of  the  Rhone.  Their  ambition 
and  their  religious  enthusiasm  were  not  satisfied  even 
by  these  extensive  conquests.  They  aspired  to  rule  the 
whole  of  Western  Europe,  and  to  proclaim  the  religion 
of  the  Prophet  from  the  sacred  tomb  of  St.  Peter  at 
Rome  itself;  and  we  may  speculate  with  curious  interest 
upon  what  would  have  been  the  fate  of  Europe  had  not 
their  career  of  conquest  in  that  portion  of  the  world 
been  stopped  and  their  invasion  driven  back  by  the 
illustrious  Charles  Martel  and  his  Franks  at  the  great 
battle  of  Poitiers,  in  732.  And  even  now,  when  the 
relative  power  of  Christendom  and  Islam  has  so  greatly 
changed,  and  Mohammedan  rule  has  long  been  iden- 
tified with  everything  which  we  regard  as  weak  and 
evil  and  debasing  in  government,  nothing  is  more  sur- 
prising and  inexplicable  than  the  tenacity  of  life  which 
is  shown  by  the  principal  Mohammedan  nation,  Turkey, 
although  the  race  which  rules  there  is  not  Semitic,  but 

Turanian  in  its  origin,  and  although  its  progenitors  were 

9* 


102  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

among  the  later  and  least  willing  of  the  converts  to  the 
Moslem  faith. 

Certainly,  if  there  are  any  questions  in  history  worth 
considering,  they  are   sucli  as  these.     What  can  have 
been  the  causes  of  these  extraordinary  results?     Who, 
then,  was  Mohammed?     What  was  his  system  of  re- 
ligion and  government?     Under  what  circumstances  did 
such  a  system  take  root  in  Arabia  ?  and  what  were  the 
causes  which  made  his  disciples  the  leaders  of  a  success- 
ful armed  propagandism?     What,  in  short,  was  Arabia, 
the  country  of  the  Prophet,  at  the  time  of  Mohammed's 
appearance  ?     Geographically,  it  forms  a  triangular  pen- 
insula,  of  which   the   base,   nearly  a  thousand   miles 
long,  rests  on  the  Indian  Ocean,  its  apex  reaching  the 
confines   of   Syria.     Of    its   two   sides,  the   eastern  is 
bounded  by  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  the  western  by  the 
Red  Sea.     Its   inhabitants   have  always   been  isolated 
from  the  rest  of  the  world.     It  contained  nothing  to 
excite  the  cupidity  of  robber  tribes,  and  its  territory  did 
not  form  a  pathway  to  lands  where  the  prey  was  more 
tempting.     A  large  portion  of  the  country  was  a  stony 
desert,  uninhabited  except  by  wild,  wandering  tribes; 
and  even  that  district  in  the  south,  called  by  the  ancients 
Arabia  Felix,  was  poor  in  resources  compared  with  Per- 
sia and  Syria  upon  its  borders,  or  indeed  with  the  other 
Eastern  lands  that  were  afterwards  subjugated  by  the 
Saracens.     The  Arabs  claim  to   have   been  descended 
from  the  outcast  Ishmael ;  and,  however  that  may  be, 
their  country  appears  in  the  remotest  history  as  a  land 


ARABIAN  COMMERCE.  103 

of  refuge  to  those  of  the  surrounding  countries  who  had 
been  driven  from  their  own  by  cruelty,  persecution,  or 
war.  At  the  time  of  Mohammed  a  large  number  of 
refugees  and  their  descendants,  of  various  nationali- 
ties, were  found  there,  each  retaining  in  a  certain 
measure  its  ancient  manners,  and  especially  its  religious 
belief  and  ceremonies.  Thus,  to  say  nothing  of  others, 
there  were  at  Mohammed's  appearance  large  settlements 
of  Jews,  at  Medina,  of  Persians,  who  were  disciples  of 
Zoroaster,  Magians,  or  fire- worshippers,  and  of  Chris- 
tians who  had  been  driven  from  Syria  and  perhaps  from 
Egypt  as  heretics. 

The  government  of  the  Arab  tribes  was  in  the  main 
patriarchal ;  but  families  who  had  long  been  rich,  and 
whose  members  held  important  positions  in  the  public 
service,  were  regarded  as  entitled  to  high  considera- 
tion. The  principal  business  of  those  tribes  who  were 
not  shepherds  was  that  of  commerce,  for  which  purpose 
(as  commerce  was  carried  on  in  those  ages)  the  position 
of  the  peninsula  of  Arabia  presented  some  peculiar  ad- 
vantages. Their  country  was  the  best  highway  for  the 
trade  which  has  immemorially  existed  between  the  East 
and  the  West.  Ships  laden  with  spices,  precious  stones, 
and  other  coveted  luxuries  from  Africa,  India,  and  the 
farther  East  came  to  Aden,  on  the  Bed  Sea,  whence 
their  cargoes  were  carried  by  the  Arabs  on  camels  across 
the  desert  to  the  cities  of  Mesopotamia,  or  to  Damascus, 
where  they  were  exchanged  for  the  grain  of  Syria  or 
the  silks  woven  in  that  country,  which  in  turn  were 


104  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

brought  back  across  the  desert  and  shipped  to  India. 
This  trade  had  been  carried  on  for  ages  before  the  time  of 
Mohammed, — perhaps  even  in  the  time  of  Solomon.  Its 
route  through  the  Arabian  desert,  as  I  have  said,  was 
the  great  highway  between  the  East  and  the  West;  and 
the  business  seems  to  have  enriched  all  concerned  in 
conducting  it.  The  merchants  in  those  days  and  in 
this  region  were  evidently  the  most  important  inhab- 
itants; and  I  know  no  more  curious  illustration  of  this 
fact  than  that  the  future  Prophet  of  Islam  should  first 
appear  in  history  as  a  travelling  salesman,  a  sort  of  agent 
for  Cadijah,  the  woman  whom  he  afterwards  married, 
who  had  intrusted  him  with  certain  of  her  goods  to  be 
conveyed  by  caravan  to  Damascus  and  there  to  be  sold  on 
her  account.  We  must  not  fail  to  remark  here  a  more 
important  result  of  this  constant  intercourse  between 
Arabia  and  Persia  and  Syria,  as  affecting  the  mind  of 
Mohammed,  as  well  as  those  of  his  countrymen  engaged 
in  this  trade ;  and  that  was  the  education  they  received 
by  the  acquaintance  thus  formed  with  foreign  countries, 
and  especially  with  foreign  religions. 

When  we  come  to  consider  the  religious  ideas  prevail- 
ing among  the  Arabs  at  the  time  of  the  advent  of  Mo- 
hammed, it  is  not  possible  to  regard  them  as  forming  a 
uniform,  national,  and  recognized  creed.  It  has  been 
said  that  the  original  Arabians,  like  all  the  Semitic 
tribes,  were  monotheists;  that  they  from  the  beginning 
had  entertained  that  opinion  concerning  the  infinite  dis- 
tance existing  between  the  power  of  the  Creator  and  the 


ARABIAN  RELIGIONS.  105 

nothingness  of  the  creature, — absolute  power  on  the 
one  side  and  absolute  submission  on  the  other, — which 
forms  the  basis  of  Mohammed's  doctrine.  It  is  said, 
indeed,  that  Mohammed  is  only  entitled  to  credit  for 
having,  by  his  teaching,  revived  the  primal  faith  of 
his  race.  However  that  may  be,  it  is  certain,  from 
causes  which  it  would  take  too  much  time  to  discuss 
here,  that  Arabia  (if  such  a  collection  of  tribes  can 
be  called  a  nation)  at  the  time  of  Mohammed's  birth 
was  a  nation  of  idolaters.  Their  form  of  idolatry  was 
a  very  curious  one.  They  had  in  the  city  of  Mecca, 
which  all  the  tribes  agreed  in  recognizing  as  the  Holy 
City,  a  temple  called  the  Caaba,  which  they  looked  upon 
as  sacred,  as  the  seat  of  their  national  worship.  Within 
this  Caaba  or  temple,  with  a  hospitality  and  toleration 
of  which  I  know  no  parallel  in  the  history  of  religious 
forms  of  worship,  except  perhaps  in  that  of  the  Pan- 
theon at  Rome,  each  tribe  performed  its  own  domestic 
and  peculiar  rites  of  worship  in  its  own  way,  each  of  them 
being  under  the  special  protection  of  a  different  idol,  the 
image  either  of  a  man  or  an  eagle  or  a  lion,  until  the 
whole  number  of  these  idols  amounted  to  three  hundred 
and  sixty.  This  worship,  in  all  the  tribes,  was  accom- 
panied, on  solemn  occasions,  by  human  sacrifices.  This 
extraordinary  diversity  of  belief  and  practice  in  religious 
worship  among  the  people  is  very  noticeable,  for,  when 
they  became  Mussulmans,  with  the  abolition  of  idolatry 
they  became  absolutely  fanatical  in  their  monotheistic 
belief,  and  they  never  changed  their  horror  of  anything 


106  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

approaching  idolatry.  This  is  only  one  indication, 
among  many,  of  the  great  revolution  in  religious  ideas 
wrought  by  Mohammed.  With  the  forms  of  idolatry 
these  tribes  had  all  the  vices  which  have  invariably 
accompanied  its  practice  in  the  East.  When  we  hear 
the  sensual  paradise,  the  material  hell,  and  the  blind 
fatalism  taught  to  his  followers  by  the  Prophet  spoken 
of  with  horror,  we  must  never  forget  the  depth  of 
degradation  and  superstition  from  which  he  succeeded 
in  raising  not  merely  his  own  countrymen,  but  vast 
numbers  in  other  lands,  with  whose  religious  systems 
his  own  may  be  said  to  be,  in  contrast,  purity  itself.  Be- 
sides the  national  form  of  worship,  those  of  the  Magians, 
the  Jews,  and  the  Christians  were  permitted.  Our  busi- 
ness now,  however,  is  rather  with  the  extraordinary 
power  of  propagandise!  which  was  developed  by  Mo- 
hammedanism, than  with  the  interesting  question  of  the 
nature  of  the  religious  beliefs  which  previously  existed 
in  the  country  of  its  birth.  How  such  a  system  as  that 
of  Mohammed  could  in  so  short  a  time  become  the 
triumphant  creed  it  did,  not  merely  in  Arabia,  but 
throughout  Asia,  overturning  the  ascendency  of  the  long- 
established  systems  of  Christianity,  Magianism,  Brah- 
manism,  and  Judaism  throughout  the  East,  can  only  be 
fully  accounted  for  by  taking  into  consideration  the  con- 
dition, political,  social,  and  religious,  of  Arabia,  and  of 
the  countries  which  were  first  invaded  by  the  Saracens. 

In  the  year  630,  which  was  the  date  of  their  first 
assault  on  the  Roman,  or,  to  speak  more  intelligibly,  the 


WEAKNESS  OF  THE  EASTERN  EMPIRE,   1Q7 

Byzantine,  power  in  Syria,  the  Roman  Empire  was  in 
name  and  theory,  at  least,  the  same  universal  Empire  it 
had  been  in  the  days  of  Augustus  and  Trajan.  Prac- 
tically and  in  fact,  however,  the  power  of  the  Emperor 
at  Constantinople  was  only  really  obeyed  in  the  eastern 
portion  of  the  Empire,  composed  of  the  provinces  of 
Egypt  and  Syria  and  of  that  portion  of  Asia  west  of 
the  Euphrates,  all,  at  that  time,  most  rich,  populous,  and 
fertile  districts.'  The  government  of  the  West  imposed 
a  great  burden  and  added  nothing  to  the  strength  or  re- 
sources of  the  Imperial  government  at  Constantinople. 
In  Spain,  the  Gothic  monarchs  had  taken  advantage  of 
the  weakness  of  the  Byzantine  government  to  annex  to 
their  kingdom  those  portions  of  that  country  bordering 
on  the  Mediterranean  which  still  recognized  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Eastern  Emperor.  In  Gaul,  the  dynasty 
of  Clovis,  under  Roman  authority  de  jure  and  Frank- 
ish  authority  de  facto,  maintained  its  independent  posi- 
tion. Northern  Europe  was  still  chiefly  Pagan,  the  first 
step  towards  its  conversion  to  the  obedience  of  the  Roman 
Church  having  been  taken  by  sending  Augustine  and  his 
monks  to  England  about  fifteen  years  before  the  first 
preaching  of  Mohammed.  In  Italy,  the  Exarch  of 
Ravenna  (representing  the  Imperial  authority  at  Con- 
stantinople) and  the  Lombards  divided  the  dominion  of 
the  country.  The  real  Roman  power  existed  only  in  the 
East :  Asia  Minor,  Egypt,  and  Syria  were  its  strongest 
supporters,  and  the  resources  of  these  provinces  were 
employed,  about  the  time  of  the  coming  of  Mohammed, 


108  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

in   defending,  under  Heraclius,  what  was   left  of  the 
Roman  authority  in  that  quarter  against  the  Persians. 

These  provinces,  especially  Syria  and  Egypt,  were  not 
only  the  most  fertile  in  resources  yet  left  to  the  Empire, 
but  their  population  was  the  most  restless  and  most  dis- 
contented of  any  with  the  policy  pursued  by  the  central 
government  at  Constantinople,  especially  with  reference 
to  the  great  question  of  the  time  in  the  East, — the  re- 
ligious question.  The  dominant  party  in  both  these 
provinces,  which  included  the  lands  in  which  Chris- 
tianity had  been  earliest  planted,  were  in  the  eyes  of 
the  authorities  at  Constantinople  heretics, — that  is  to 
say,  they  dissented  from  the  declarations  of  the  creed  of 
Nicaea  in  regard  to  the  Trinity.  This  creed  was  consid- 
ered by  the  Emperor  and  by  his  clergy  as  the  foundation 
of  the  true  faith,  and  it  was  ordered  to  be  observed  by 
all  his  subjects  as  such.  These  provinces,  as  we  need  not 
say,  were  among  the  most  ancient  seats  of  the  highest 
civilization  in  the  world.  Six  hundred  years  before 
Christ  they  had  formed  part  of  that  great  Macedonian 
Empire  under  Alexander  the  Great  and  his  successors, 
which  had  scattered  broadcast  the  seeds  of  Greek  cul- 
ture, the  growth  of  which  changed  the  whole  current 
of  Oriental  ideas  and  history.  In  the  palmiest  days  of 
the  Empire  they  were  its  most  flourishing  provinces. 
In  them  were  to  be  found  some  of  the  most  famous 
cities  of  antiquity:  Alexandria,  the  entrep6t  of  the 
world's  commerce,  the  seat  for  so  many  ages  of  the 
Greek  philosophy,  and  the  home  of  so  many  Hellenized 


CHRISTIAN  HERETICAL  SECTS.  109 

Jews  and  of  Christian  heretical  sects ;  Antioch,  the  rich 
and  proud  capital  of  Syria  on  the  coast,  where  the  "  dis- 
ciples were  first  called  Christians;"  Jerusalem,  the  holy; 
Damascus,  the  beautiful;  Ephesus,  the  city  of  Diana;  to 
say  nothing  of  many  less  noted  cities,  the  long-settled 
centres  of  wealth  and  luxury,  outgrowths  for  the  most 
part  of  Greek  colonization,  forming  a  district  whose 
population  was  more  highly  cultured  in  the  Greek  sense 
than  any  other  on  the  earth's  surface.  These  cities  early 
embraced  Christianity;  but  with  them  it  was  not,  as 
among  the  sober  and  practical  people  of  the  West  of 
Europe,  adopted  simply  as  a  rule  of  life,  but  rather,  with 
that  disputatious  temper  so  characteristic  of  the  Greeks, 
and  still  more  so  of  Hellenized  Orientals,  it  became  a 
pretext  for  perpetual  abstract  metaphysical  speculation. 

These  cultured  people  were  among  the  most  zealous 
professors  of  Christianity  and  the  worst  illustrations  of 
its  practical  lessons.  With  that  free  temper  which  was 
characteristic  of  minds  trained  in  the  Greek  schools  of 
thought,  they  eagerly  discussed  all  its  peculiarities,  and 
soon  moulded  it  into  forms  adapted  to  Greek  philosoph- 
ical systems,  regardless  of  the  charge  of  heresy  con- 
stantly made  by  the  orthodox  at  Rome  and  at  Constan- 
tinople. With  the  nice  shades  of  distinction  in  regard 
to  the  nature  of  Christ,  and  other  speculative  opinions 
concerning  Christian  dogmas,  which  are  involved  in 
this  controversy,  we  have  here  nothing  to  do,  except 
to  say  that  the  controversy  itself  served  as  a  pretext 

for  the   Christians    in    Syria  and   Egypt,   under   the 

10 


HO  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

name  of  Nestorians  and  Jacobites,  not  merely  to  de- 
clare their  independence  of  the  Church  authority  at 
Constantinople,  but  also  to  breed  disloyalty  to  the  gov- 
ernment which  supported  that  authority  and  which  in 
their  minds  was  inseparably  associated  with  it.  The 
business  of  government,  in  the  opinion  of  these  sectaries, 
was  to  preserve  the  faith.  Thus  the  heart  of  both  Syria 
and  Egypt  was  thoroughly  disloyal  to  the  Imperial  gov- 
ernment long  before  Mohammed  proclaimed  his  faith, 
and  their  inhabitants  were  doubtless  ripe  for  revolt  at 
that  time  and  waited  only  for  a  suitable  pretext. 

As  to  the  military  resources  and  power  of  the  Empire, 
which  seem  to  have  melted  away  at  the  first  shock  of 
the  onslaught  of  the  Saracens,  it  may  be  proper  to  say  a 
few  words.  The  country  was  still  part  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  its  troops  formed  a  Roman  army,  but  they 
were  as  unlike  the  formidable  legions  which  ages  before, 
under  Pompey  and  Cassar,  had  reduced  Syria  and  Egypt 
to  the  obedience  of  Rome,  as  the  power  they  represented 
was  shorn  of  that  prestige  of  victory  which  had  so  long 
attended  the  standard  which  marked  the  proud  authority 
of  Senatus  populusque  Romanus.  The  Roman  army  at 
the  time  of  Heraclius  and  Mohammed  was  a  motley  assem- 
blage, made  up  of  men  from  all  tribes,  both  within  and 
without  the  Empire,  slaves  and  strangers  chiefly,  and 
without  any  of  that  deep-seated  instinct  of  nationality 
which  in  former  ages  had  rendered  Rome  invincible. 
Discipline  and  numbers,  so  long  as  the  pay  was  regularly 
made,  were  still  there,  and  the  art  of  war,  but  faith  and 


WEAKNESS  OF  THE  ROMAN  ARMY.       HI 

enthusiasm  were  not.  These  men  served  only  as  merce- 
naries, and  the  luxurious  habits  of  the  cities  of  the  East 
where  the  legions  were  stationed,  and  the  practice  of 
conciliating  them  by  large  donatives,  had  greatly  weak- 
ened their  highest  military  qualities.  They  had,  just 
before  the  appearance  of  Mohammed,  been  engaged  in 
constant  wars  with  Persia,  and  in  mutinies  for  increased 
privileges,  but  until  Heraclius  took  the  bold  step  of  at- 
tacking the  capital  of  that  country  and  forced  its  armies 
to  retreat  from  Syria,  the  Roman  troops  in  Asia  had 
been  constantly  defeated  by  those  of  the  great  king. 
They  had  lost  Aleppo,  Antiocli,  and  Jerusalem,  and  were 
forced  back  across  the  Hellespont,  the  Persians  being 
able  to  establish  themselves  on  the  plains  of  Chalcedon, 
almost  within  sight  of  the  walls  of  Constantinople. 
Egypt,  the  only  Roman  province  which  had  been 
exempt  from  foreign  war  since  the  time  of  Diocletian, 
fell,  too,  before  the  power  of  the  Persian  king,  Chosroes, 
or  Nushirvan.  From  the  danger  which  by  these  con- 
quests threatened  the  existence  of  the  Empire  it  was 
delivered  by  the  genius  and  valor  of  Heraclius,  one  of 
the  greatest  and  least  known  names  in  Roman  history ; 
but,  although  his  exploits  recall  her  proudest  days,  from 
them  came  no  sustained  military  power  capable  of  re- 
sisting the  progress  of  the  Saracens.  These  wars,  waged 
to  determine  the  ascendency  of  the  Romans  or  Persians 
in  the  East,  lasted  more  than  twenty  years,  and  are  of 
interest  to  us  now  only  as  showing  the  absolute  ex- 
haustion of  the  resources  of  those  enemies  from  whom 


112  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

Mohammed  had  most  to  fear ;  for  doubtless  at  that  very 
time  he  was  meditating  the  extension  of  his  religion  by 
an  armed  propagandism.  The  only  effectual  barrier 
against  the  invasion  of  Eastern  Europe  by  the  Saracens, 
which  remained  as  such  unconquered  for  more  than  eight 
hundred  years,  was  the  Imperial  city  of  Constantino, 
which  resisted  until  the  year  1453  the  repeated  and 
determined  efforts  of  both  the  Saracens  and  their  succes- 
sors the  Ottoman  Turks  to  reach  the  heart  of  Europe 
over  its  ruins. 

Such,  then,  being  briefly  the  condition  of  the  country 
of  Mohammed  and  of  the  Byzantine  and  Persian  mon- 
archies at  the  time  of  his  coming,  we  are  ready  to  ask 
who  and  what  this  man  was  by  whom  a  new  era  was  to 
be  opened,  and  by  whose  teachings  the  condition  of  this 
part  of  the  world  was  to  be  so  suddenly  and  so  com- 
pletely changed.  Mohammed  was  born  in  the  year  569, 
of  the  noblest  race  in  Arabia, — that  of  the  Koreish,  to 
whom  belonged  the  hereditary  guardianship  of  the 
Caaba,  the  principal  temple,  as  I  have  explained,  of  the 
national  worship,  in  which,  at  the  time  of  his  birth,  no 
less  than  three  hundred  and  sixty  idols  were  objects  of 
worship  by  as  many  tribes  and  were  regarded  by  them 
as  their  tutelary  deities.  Mohammed  was  forty-one  years 
old  before  he  publicly  claimed  to  be  a  prophet  of  God. 
There  is  nothing  mysterious  about  his  early  life.  He 
was  first  a  shepherd,  and  then  a  tradesman,  and  by  his 
virtues  and  by  his  capacity  as  a  business-man  succeeded 
in  marrying  the  rich  woman,  Cadijah,  in  whose  employ 


MOHAMMED'S  EARLY  LIFE,  113 

lie  was,  and  she  repaid  his  devotion  by  becoming  his  first 
convert.  He  seemed  at  first  a  very  commonplace  person. 
He  was  in  the  habit,  like  many  other  earnest  men,  of 
retiring  to  secret  places  to  pray ;  and  he  was  overcome 
with  sadness  as  he  meditated  upon  the  evils  of  this  world, 
and  especially  when  he  saw  how  his  countrymen  were 
wholly  given  to  idolatry.  But  his  soul  was  deeper  and 
his  spirit  was  more  earnest  than  those  of  other  men : 
hence  he  felt  that  soul  stirred  from  its  lowest  depths  by 
a  voice  which  he  recognized  as  unmistakably  the  voice 
of  God.  Mohammed's  early  life  was  filled  with  visions, 
— revelations  as  he  called  them,  the  delusions  of  hysteria 
and  catalepsy  as  his  enemies  claim.  It  is  impossible 
here  to  give  all  the  reasons  for  the  belief  that  to  Moham- 
med these  visions  were  in  very  truth  realities ;  that  he 
was  entirely  sincere  and  earnest  in  his  belief  that  he  had 
heard  the  voice  of  God ;  that  he  was  indeed  inspired  in 
the  same  sense  as  some  of  the  most  illustrious  characters 
in  history  have  been, — Socrates,  for  instance,  or  Joan  of 
Arc,  or  Swedenborg,  or  even  the  great  Cromwell.  This 
voice  proclaimed  to  him  the  great  dogma,  "  That  there 
was  but  one  God,  and  that  Mohammed  was  the  Prophet 
of  God."  Like  all  men  who  are  in  earnest  about  the 
truth  that  is  in  them,  he  set  about  making  converts. 
Long  years  passed  before  he  could  gather  more  than  a 
mere  handful.  They  consisted  of  his  wife  and  of  some 
of  his  near  relatives.  But  during  all  this  time  he  was 
fiercely  persecuted  and  his  life  threatened  by  members  of 
the  Koreish  tribe.  Such  was  his  position  for  more  than 

10* 


MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 


twelve  years ;  and  as,  of  course,  he  could  not  have  fore- 
seen the  brilliant  success  which  awaited  his  plans  in  the 
future,  as  indeed  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  he  ever 
dreamed  of  such  success,  he  must  have  been  supported 
by  an  earnest  belief  in  the  reality  of  his  mission,  when 
he  felt  strong  enough  to  carry  it  on  in  the  loneliness  and 
contempt  to  which  he  seemed  doomed. 

"We  must  not  forget  that  in  this  early  part  of  his  career 
he  professed  that  his  object  was  to  restore  the  universal 
religion  which  had  been  taught  men  from  the  beginning, 
the  absolute  unity  of  God,  the  religion  of  all  true  patri- 
archs and  prophets.  Its  one  duty  was,  according  to  him, 
Islam,  or  submission  to  the  Divine  will.  Its  worship 
was  prayer,  fasting,  almsgiving,  and  pilgrimage.  Among 
a  people  steeped  in  superstition,  the  source  of  the  darkest 
vices,  he  taught,  as  the  basis  of  his  system  for  practical 
life,  charity,  justice,  and  chastity,  and  the  duty  to  do  and 
bear  everything  for  the  truth.  He  preached  the  essential 
unity  and  equality  of  the  human  race,  and  the  folly  of 
setting  up  distinctions  among  men,  as  if  they  could  be 
recognized  in  the  sight  of  God.  It  is  said  that  a  sort  of 
leaven  of  monotheism  has  always  pervaded  the  Arabian 
race  from  the  time  of  Abraham  and  of  Ishmael,  and  that 
Mohammed's  system  has  on  that  account  no  claim  to  origi- 
nality. But  he  made  no  such  claim ;  lie  knew,  as  all  great 
founders  of  religion  have  known,  that  the  true  prophet 
is  he  who  proclaims  a  doctrine  which  best  meets  the 
spiritual  needs  of  a  race  at  a  particular  time,  or  at  least 
the  one  who  can  see  clearly  in  what  direction  they  tend. 


HIS  DOCTRINES.  115 

Mohammed  taught  that  there  had  been  in  the  history  of 
the  world  successive  revelations  of  God  to  the  human 
race,  and  that  each  was  higher  and  fuller  than  the  one 
which  preceded  it.  Abraham,  Moses,  and  Christ  were  to 
him,  as  they  are  to  his  followers  to  this  day,  true  prophets, 
but  he  was  last  and  best  of  all.  He  never  claimed  to  be 
infallible;  he  was  conscious  that  he  might  make,  and 
even  that  he  often  did  make,  mistakes,  but  he  never  lost 
faith  in  his  mission,  and  he  always  believed  that  the 
words  he  spoke  came  from  God.  He  never  claimed  him- 
self, although  his  followers  have  done  so  for  him,  the 
power  of  working  miracles,  although  he  insisted  that  he 
was  so  filled  with  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  during 
his  visions  that  strength  was  given  him  to  proclaim  and 
execute  the  will  of  God.  He,  like  the  Fathers  of  the 
Christian  Church,  believed  that  miracles  might  be 
wrought  by  others,  but,  like  them,  he  never  laid  claim 
to  any  other  miraculous  power  save  that  inspiration  which 
enabled  him  to  teach  true  doctrine. 

Mohammed's  career  may  be  divided  into  three  epochs. 
1.  That  of  his  conversion,  his  proclamation  of  his  doc- 
trine, and  his  consequent  persecution.  To  this  epoch 
doubtless  belong  the  highest  and  truest  enthusiasm  of 
his  nature,  and  the  corresponding  purity  and  blameless- 
ness  of  his  life.  2.  When  his  religion  had  gained  many 
adherents,  and  there  was  a  prospect  of  its  becoming  the 
religion  of  all  the  Arabian  tribes,  Mohammed  seems  to 
have  been  in  a  certain  sense  intoxicated  with  his  tri- 
umph. Changes  for  the  worse  appear  in  some  of  his 


116  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

moral  teachings,  as  shown  especially  in  the  revelation 
which  he  claimed  to  have  received  dispensing  him  from 
the  observance  of  the  law  in  regard  to  the  limited  num- 
ber of  wives  permitted  to  his  disciples,  and  in  that  still 
greater  change,  which  has  seemed  to  so  many  the  fatal 
objection  to  the  sincerity  of  his  belief,  the  advocacy  of 
the  use  of  the  sword  in  extending  his  doctrine,  not  only 
as  an  act  lawful  in  itself,  but  as  the  imperative  duty  of 
all  his  true  followers.  3.  The  epoch  in  which  Arabia 
was  converted  to  Islam.  It  was  then  taught  by  Mo- 
hammed that  his  religion  was  a  universal  one,  and  that 
it  should  be  spread  throughout  the  world  by  means  of 
an  armed  propagandism,  and  that  with  this  object  in 
view  other  nations,  Christian  and  Pagan,  should  be 
offered  the  alternatives  of  conversion,  tribute,  or  de- 
struction by  the  sword.  There  was  a  manifest  deterio- 
ration both  in  the  character  of  the  Prophet  and  of  his 
religion  during  these  successive  epochs.  His  system  was 
degraded  and  defiled,  as  all  religious  systems  are,  by 
a  resort  to  force  to  secure  their  ascendency.  The  Mo- 
hammedanism of  history,  especially  when  it  became  the 
faith  of  a  race  so  alien  to  all  the  characteristics  of  the 
Semitic  as  that  of  the  Ottoman  Turks,  is  a  very  differ- 
ent and  very  much  less  pure  system  than  that  pro- 
claimed by  the  Prophet  himself.  Yet,  bad  as  many 
features  of  Islam  are  in  history,  still  no  one  can  doubt 
that  it  is  a  much  better  and  more  rational  system  in 
many  respects  than  many  of  the  religions  it  supplanted 
in  the  course  of  its  conquests.  It  is  certainly  to  be 


MOHAMMED  NOT  AN  IMPOSTOR.         117 

preferred  to  the  Arabian  idolatry,  to  the  fetichism  of 
Africa,  to  the  weakness  and  fruitlessness  of  Byzantine 
speculations  about  Christianity,  and  to  the  decayed 
beliefs  of  Persia  and  India. 

It  seems  to  me  that  we  should  be  cautious  in  follow- 
ing the  example  of  the  old  writers  by  calling  Moham- 
med an  impostor,  and  speaking  of  his  religion  as  a 
success  simply  because  it  gratified  sensual  appetites. 
We  must  remember  that  there  is  no  mystery  or  legend 
blinding  us  about  Mohammed's  early  life  and  teach- 
ings, as  there  is  about  Boudha,  for  instance,  and  the 
Brah manic  cosmogony.  We  know  almost  as  much  of 
him  as  \ve  do  of  Luther  or  of  Milton.  He,  of  all 
others,  stands  in  "the  fierce  white  light  which  shines 
upon  a  throne,"  and  by  that  light  his  greatness  and  his 
weakness  are  equally  conspicuous.  And  as  to  the  attract- 
iveness of  his  religion,  made  so  by  its  giving  a  sanc- 
tion to  the  gratification  of  self-indulgent  or  sensual  ap- 
petite, let  the  indignant  comment  of  Voltaire  (no  friend 
of  Mohammed)  be  a  sufficient  answer:  "Oh,  canons, 
monks,  parish  priests  even,"  he  exclaims,  "  if  any  one 
forced  you  to  submit  to  a  law  that  you  should  eat  and 
drink  nothing  from  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  till 
ten  at  night  during  Lent,  supposing  that  fast  to  occur  in 
the  month  of  July,  if  you  were  forbidden  to  play  at  any 
game  of  chance  under  penalty  of  eternal  damnation,  if 
the  use  of  wine  was  interdicted  to  you  under  the  same 
penalty,  if  you  were  obliged  to  make  pilgrimages  across 
burning  deserts,  if  you  were  required  to  give  one-tenth 


118  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

of  your  income  to  the  poor,  if,  having  been  accustomed 
to  eighteen  wives,  fourteen  were  suddenly  taken  from 
vonj — jf?  I  say,  such  a  religion  was  presented  to  you, 
I  do  not  think  you  would  dare  to  call  it  a  sensual 
religion." 

The  Koran  is  the  sacred  book  of  the  Mussulmans,  and 
its  text,  ipsissima  verba,  the  infallible  guide  of  their 
lives.  Mohammed  claimed  that  the  law  as  revealed 
in  this  book  was  the  actual  word  of  God,  and  that 
he  was  the  mere  channel  by  which  that  word  was 
conveyed  to  the  world,  or,  at  most,  the  editor  of  the 
book.  The  fragments  of  the  Koran,  which  are  in  a 
somewhat  disconnected  and  incoherent  form,  were  pro- 
duced by  Mohammed  at  his  discretion,  and  as  occa- 
sion seemed  to  require,  in  his  sermons  and  discourses. 
They  were  recorded  by  his  adherents  on  such  strangely 
perishable  materials  as  the  shoulder- bones  of  sheep, 
oyster-shells,  and  the  like,  and  were,  two  years  after  the 
death  of  Mohammed,  collected  and  published  by  his  suc- 
cessor, Abubeker.  This  book  is  made  up  of  what  are 
regarded  by  the  Moslems  as  absolute  verities ;  but  its 
teachings  are  supplemented,  as  in  all  religions,  by  the  life 
and  example  of  the  founder.  The  sayings  of  Mohammed 
to  them  are  so  many  lessons  of  wisdom,  his  acts  so  many 
examples  of  virtue. 

The  propagation  of  Mohammed's  religion  on  a  large 
scale  began  at  the  epoch  known  among  the  Arabians 
as  the  "  Hegira,"  which  marks  the  period  of  the  flight 
of  Mohammed  and  his  companions  from  Mecca  and 


THE   CONVERSION  OF  THE  ARABS.       119 

their  taking  refuge  at  Medina.  This  was  in  July,  A.D. 
622.  A  considerable  number  of  the  people  at  Medina, 
including  many  Jews  resident  there,  were  ready  to 
receive  as  their  prophet  and  leader  the  outcast  from 
Mecca,  with  his  followers,  and  to  aid  him  in  spreading 
his  rule  and  doctrine  over  the  whole  of  Arabia,  and 
especially  over  the  members  of  his  own  tribe,  the  Ko- 
reish,  who  had  driven  him  from  Mecca.  From  this  time 
forth  the  tone  of  Mohammed's  action  became  wholly 
changed.  Force  was  substituted  for  persuasion,  and  a 
new  revelation  from  God  was  invoked  to  give  it  sanc- 
tion. It  is  true  that  the  choice  of  friendship  or  of  sub- 
mission was  proposed  to  the  enemies  of  Mohammed ;  but 
there  was  no  backwardness  in  the  application  of  military 
force  to  secure  his  object  when  any  hesitation  was  ap- 
parent. "  The  sword/'  said  the  Prophet,  "  is  the  key  of 
heaven  and  hell ;  a  drop  of  blood  shed  in  the  cause  of 
God,  a  night  spent  in  arms,  is  of  more  avail  than  two 
months  of  fasting  and  prayer:  whosoever  falls  in  battle, 
his  sins  are  forgiven;  at  the  day  of  judgment  his  wounds 
shall  be  resplendent  as  vermilion  and  odoriferous  as 
musk."  In  this  way  his  functions  as  king  and  as 
prophet  became  inseparable,  and  after  a  few  years  of 
fighting  with  his  old  tribe  and  with  the  Jews  of  Arabia 
they  became  not  only  his  subjects,  but  his  converts  also. 
This  is  a  very  striking  feature  not  only  of  Mohammed's 
wars,  but  of  those  of  all  the  Caliphs.  At  first  sight 
nothing  is  more  extraordinary  in  history  than  that  a 
few  wandering  and  obscure  tribes  in  such  a  distant, 


120  MEDIEVAL   HISTORY. 

sparsely-peopled  land  as  that  of  Arabia  should  in  a  few 
years  march  through  the  most  civilized  portion  of  three 
continents  as  conquerors;  but  when  we  remember  that 
Mohammed's  appeal  was  to  the  united  force  of  two  of 
the  most  powerful  motives  which  swayed  human  action 
in  those  days, — superstition  and  a  love  of  war, — we 
gain  a  glimpse  at  least  of  the  causes  of  the  military 
successes  of  the  Saracens,  although  it  must  be  confessed 
that  there  are  few  events  in  history  more  difficult  of 
a  full  and  satisfactory  explanation  than  this.  His  own 
country  subdued  to  his  faith  and  rule,  Mohammed,  just 
before  his  death,  prepared  for  the  future  destiny  of 
Islam. 

His  first  step  towards  securing  the  permanent  extension 
of  his  rule,  both  as  prophet  and  as  king,  had  been,  as  we 
have  seen,  to  gain  the  union  and  co-operation  of  the  wild 
tribes  of  his  own  country.  Exactly  in  what  proportions 
his  military  success  over  those  whom  he  called  rebels, 
and  the  fanatical  devotion  to  his  creed  with  which  he 
inspired  them,  effected  this  object,  it  is  not  easy  to  say. 
In  the  year  632 — the  year  of  his  death — he  felt  himself 
strong  enough  at  home  to  defy  the  power  of  the  Greek 
and  Persian  monarch  s  and  to  send  to  each  of  them  a 
message  inviting  both  to  profess  the  truths  of  Islam. 
If  we  did  not  know  the  result,  we  should  be  inclined 
to  regard  such  a  proceeding  as  the  act  of  a  madman : 
as  such,  indeed,  the  King  of  Persia,  the  great  King 
of  Kings,  the  successor  of  Cyrus,  seems  to  have  con- 
sidered it,  for  he  tore  up  the  paper  which  contained  the 


ARMED  PROPAGANDISM.  121 

summons,  whereupon  he  was  told  by  the  indignant  and 
undaunted  messenger  that  in  such  a  manner  his  own 
kingdom  would  be  destroyed  by  the  followers  of  the 
Prophet.  The  Greek  Emperor,  Heraclius,  seems  to  have 
treated  a  similar  message  with  more  courtesy,  for  he  is 
said  to  have  listened  to  it  with  great,  and  probably 
amused,  curiosity.  But  of  course  there  could  be  no 
agreement  between  Islam  and  Christianity  or  the  creed 
of  Zoroaster,  and  a  divided  rule,  much  less  the  fusion 
of  such  elements,  was  impossible.  Foreign  conquest 
was  evidently  the  settled  policy  of  Mohammed  before 
his  death,  for  thus  only  could  his  system  be  propagated. 
It  became,  by  reason  of  the  triumphs  of  his  successors, 
as  much  a  characteristic  of  his  religion,  as  long  as  it 
maintained  its  vitality,  as  the  belief  in  the  unity  of 
God  and  the  apostleship  of  the  Prophet. 

It  was  the  combined  force  of  fanaticism  and  disci- 
pline which  produced  the  wonderful  results  of  those 
campaigns  which  made  the  Moslems  victorious  over  the 
old  systems.  It  was  not  alone  intense  and  intolerant 
fanaticism  for  the  spread  of  their  religious  ideas.  They 
gave  from  the  beginning  to  all  their  enemies  of  different 
religions  the  choice  of  embracing  Islam  or  of  paying  a 
tribute  and  retaining  their  own  faith.  Fancy  the  Cru- 
saders, or,  in  later  times,  the  Puritans,  making  such 
a  compromise  of  what  they  believed  to  be  the  truth ! 
If  the  Saracens  had  been  zealots  such  as  these,  they 
would  have  sought  to  exterminate  Christianity  in  the 

lands  they  conquered.     And  yet  doubtless  their  brilliant 

11 


122  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

exploits,  especially  in  the  beginning,  were  due  in  a  great 
measure  to  their  blind  faith  in  that  religion  of  which 
absolute  fatalism  was  the  basis.  They  hesitated  at  first, 
some  of  them,  to  undertake  the  campaigns  in  Syria  and 
Persia :  the  odds  were  too  great,  the  danger  appalling, 
the  weather  too  hot.  "  Hot !"  exclaimed  the  undaunted 
Prophet;  "hell  is  hotter;  and  as  to  danger,  it  is  ap- 
pointed unto  all  men  once  to  die,  and  for  those  who  die 
in  battle  fighting  for  the  faith  the  unspeakable  joys  of 
Paradise  are  ready  and  prepared."  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  cause,  it  is  clear  that  in  all  the  early  cam- 
paigns of  the  Saracens  there  was  a  conspicuous  union 
of  the  blindest  fanaticism  with  the  sternest  discipline, 
and  to  this  their  unchecked  career  of  victory  is  chiefly 
due.  Whenever  we  see  such  a  combination  in  history 
(which  is  very  seldom),  as,  for  instance,  in  the  case  of 
Cromwell's  regiments  and  the  Covenanters  in  Scotland, 
it  seems  the  condition  of  assured  success. 

In  this  way  only  can  we  account  for  the  fact  that 
during  ten  years  of  the  reign  of  Omar  (the  second  in 
succession  to  the  Prophet)  the  Saracens  conquered  thirty- 
six  thousand  cities  or  castles,  destroyed  four  thousand 
churches  or  temples  of  unbelievers,  and  built  fourteen 
hundred  mosques  for  their  worship.  One  hundred  years 
after  his  flight  from  Mecca,  the  rule  of  the  successors 
of  the  Prophet  extended  from  the  mouth  of  the  river 
Indus  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  and  from  the  frontier  of 
China  to  the  Red  Sea,  embracing  a  very  considerable 
portion  of  two  continents,  and  the  oldest  and  most 


CAMPAIGNS  OF  THE  ARABS.  123 

civilized  portions  of  the  earth's  surface, — Persia,  Syria, 
Egypt,  Africa,  and  Spain. 

The  Romans,  with  prudent  caution,  never  undertook 
more  than  one  war  of  conquest  at  a  time ;  the  Saracens, 
in  their  impetuous  eagerness,  did  not  hesitate  to  attack 
in  one  campaign  the  strongest  military  powers  then  exist- 
ing,— the  Greek  Empire  and  Persia. 

In  the  very  year  of  Mohammed's  death  (632)  the 
Saracens,  under -the  command  of  Khaled,  the  "sword  of 
God,"  as  he  was  called,  advanced  to  the  Euphrates,  and, 
after  various  minor  victories,  they  defeated  the  Persians 
in  the  desperate  battle  of  Cadesia  in  636,  and  thus  de- 
cided the  fate  of  the  empire  of  Cyrus.  The  immediate 
result  was  the  permanent  occupation  of  the  country 
between  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris,  known  to  the 
ancients  as  Assyria  and  Mesopotamia,  and  even  then  one 
of  the  most  fertile  and  populous  districts  in  Asia.  With 
that  extraordinary  keenness  of  the  commercial  instinct 
so  strong  among  the  Arabs,  they  did  not  forget  in  their 
religious  zeal  to  take  time  to  establish  there  a  seaport, 
Bassorah,  which  has  been  ever  since,  in  all  the  vicissitudes 
of  history,  and  even  now  is,  a  most  important  entrep6t 
of  commerce  in  that  part  of  the  world.  What  a  com- 
mentary upon  human  motives  and  human  ambition ! 
Nineveh  the  proud,  Babylon  the  great,  Ctesiphon  the 
advanced  post  of  Greek  culture  in  those  regions,  Bagdad 
the  gorgeous  city  of  the  Caliphs,  are  all  gone,  while 
Rameses,  and  Cyrus,  and  Alexander,  and  Haroun-al- 
Raschid  are  known  to  us  now  chiefly  as  examples  of  the 


124  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

vanity  of  human  greatness ;  and  yet  this  little  trading- 
post  of  Bassorah  has  been  kept  alive  while  all  around 
has  fallen,  and  that  by  a  motive  more  potent  with  man- 
kind in  the  long  run  than  the  love  of  glory  or  of  power, 
— the  love  of  making  money. 

But  the  Saracens  soon  pushed  on  beyond  the  Tigris, 
northward  and  eastward,  until  they  reached  the  Caspian 
Sea,  conquering  many  famous  cities  on  their  route.  Not 
satisfied  with  this,  they  advanced  yet  farther,  occupying 
Khorassan,  the  country  between  the  Caspian  and  the 
river  Oxus;  and  in  twelve  years  from  the  time  when  the 
holy  war  was  begun,  the  rule  of  the  Caliph  was  extended 
far  beyond  the  Oxus  to  the  frontier  of  China,  and  to 
those  regions  towards  the  north  then  inhabited  by  a  race 
whose  children  centuries  afterwards,  under  the  name  of 
Ottoman  Turks,  were  to  be  the  successors  of  the  Arabs 
and  the  Saracens  and  to  represent  in  Europe  the  armed 
force  and  power  of  Islam. 

Contemporaneously  with  the  war  in  Persia  came  the 
war  in  Syria  against  the  Greek  Emperor,  the  ruler  of 
what  was  left  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  East.  In 
six  years,  ending  in  638,  that  famous  country  was  wholly 
conquered  by  the  Saracens.  Bozrah,  Damascus,  Baalbec, 
fell  in  the  same  year;  the  next  year  witnessed  the  fall  of 
Jerusalem ;  in  638  Aleppo  and  Antioch  became  tributary 
cities;  and  for  more  than  three  hundred  years  the  Roman 
province  in  which  Christ  was  born  rested  as  completely 
under  the  rule  of  the  infidel  as  Arabia  itself.  Egypt 
was  the  next  country  which  yielded  to  the  irresistible 


ARAB   CONQUESTS.  125 

force  of  the  Saracens,  and,  as  they  were  aided  by  the  good 
will  at  least  of  the  native  Christians,  who  held  the  au- 
thorities at  Constantinople  in  abhorrence,  there  was  little 
resistance  offered  except  by  the  garrison  at  Alexandria. 
The  burning  of  the  famous  library  of  that  most  illus- 
trious city  by  order  of  the  Caliph  is  a  story  which  rests 
upon  a  somewhat  doubtful  authority ;  but  if  it  be  au- 
thentic the  act  was  one  of  blind  fanaticism,  and  imitated, 
it  is  sad  to  say,  later  by  the  Christians  themselves,  for  the 
Spaniards  after  the  capture  of  Granada  in  1492  brought 
from  every  corner  of  Spain  Arabic  books  and  burned 
them  all,  so  as  to  make  of  their  destruction  a  magnificent 
auto-da-fe.  It  is  said  that  more  than  a  million  and  a 
half  of  volumes  were  consumed  by  fire  on  this  occasion. 

Egypt  conquered,  the  Saracens  pursued  their  course 
westward  along  the  Mediterranean,  subduing  the  Roman 
province  of  Africa,  more  Roman  in  the  days  of  the  de- 
cline of  the  Empire  than  Italy  itself,  adding,  after  a 
long  struggle,  ancient  Carthage  and  Mauritania  as  far  as 
the  shores  of  the  Atlantic  to  their  dominions. 

In  the  year  710,  the  same  year  in  which  their  co-re- 
ligionists conquered  that  portion  of  India  called  Scinde, 
the  basin  of  the  great  river  Indus,  the  Saracens  crossed 
the  Straits  of  Gibraltar  into  Spain,  and  in  one  battle 
completely  destroyed  the  Yisigothic  power  in  at  least 
three-fourths  of  that  country.  They  remained  there 
nearly  eight  hundred  years.  Of  their  history  in  that 
country,  especially  of  the  character  of  their  civilization 

in  contrast  with  that  of  Christendom,  we  shall  speak 

11* 


126  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

hereafter.  But  for  the  present  we  must  leave  the  won- 
derful story  of  the  Saracenic  conquests,  merely  observ- 
ing, as  a  clue  to  guide  us  to  the  secret  of  their  persistent 
influence  in  history,  that  amidst  the  varied  fortunes  of 
the  Caliphate,  divided  and  distracted  as  it  became  by 
revolutions  in  the  course  of  time,  the  Moslems,  amidst 
all  their  dissensions,  agreed  at  least  in  this  grand  pro- 
fession of  faith  with  which  they  began :  "  There  is  but 
one  God,  and  Mohammed  is  the  Prophet  of  God." 


CHAPTER  V. 

MEDIAEVAL   FRANCE. 

WE  turn  now  from  the  East  to  the  West, — from  what 
seems  the  permanent  triumph  of  Islam  in  Asia  and 
Africa  to  the  slow  and  hesitating  advance  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  in  taming  the  wild  tribes  of  Western 
Europe, — from  the  story  of  the  wonderful  conquests 
upon  which  the  assured  strength  of  the  Saracens  was 
founded,  to  a  study  of  the  causes  of  that  weakness,  dis- 
solution, and  decay  which  we  meet  everywhere  in  the 
Empire  founded  by  Charlemagne,  and  which  were  rap- 
idly developed  under  the  rule  of  his  descendants.  No 
contrast  in  history  is  more  striking  than  that  thus  pre- 
sented between  a  decaying  Empire  built  up  with  Chris- 
tianity as  its  recognized  basis,  and  the  strength  and  pride 
of  conquest  of  the  Saracens,  who,  stimulated  by  their 
intense  religious  faith,  had  been  able,  after  a  struggle  of 
a  few  years,  not  only  to  uproot  Christianity  in  the  lands 
where  it  was  first  planted  and  where  its  growth  had 
been  from  the  beginning  most  vigorous,  but  also  utterly 
to  arrest  the  development  of  the  peculiar  ideas  of  that 
portion  of  mankind  in  whom  rested,  as  we  can  now  see, 
the  hope  of  the  future  of  the  human  race. 

If  we  could  transport  ourselves  for  a  moment  to 
those  days  of  unlooked-for  weakness  and  misery,  and 

127 


128  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

knowing  nothing  of  the  future,  save  that  there  existed  a 
universal  belief  that  the  year  1000  was  to  witness  the  end 
of  the  world,  we  should  probably  be  forced  to  agree  with 
the  many  sad,  thoughtful,  and  puzzled  Christian  men  of 
that  time,  who,  looking  round  them  and  recognizing  the 
triumph  of  the  false  Prophet  on  every  hand,  were  sorely 
tried  to  explain  how,  in  accordance  with  God's  promise, 
the  failure  of  Christianity  and  of  Christian  civilization 
and  the  triumph  of  Mohammedanism  could  coincide 
with  the  consummation  of  all  things.  Never,  it  seems 
to  me,  did  the  actual  condition  of  the  race  in  Western 
Europe  seem  one  of  greater  degradation  and  misrule, 
or  one  more  hopeless  for  the  future,  than  it  was  between 
the  date  of  the  death  of  Charlemagne  and  that  of  the 
election  of  Hugh  Capet  as  King  of  France  (814-987). 
Yet  the  lesson  which  this  era  (which  we  propose  to 
study  in  this  chapter)  teaches  is  that  out  of  the  confu- 
sion, chaos,  and  anarchy  of  those  days  grew,  in  a  very 
important  sense,  modern  Europe,  with  all  its  character- 
istic civilization,  and  this  other  lesson,  that  the  only 
things  that  are  never  permanently  obscured  in  history, 
although  our  eyes  may  be  darkened  to  them  for  genera- 
tions, are  the  providence  of  God  and  human  progress. 
Illustrating  this  principle  in  a  remarkable  degree,  we 
shall  find  that  the  triumphs  of  the  Saracens,  rapid, 
brilliant,  and  remarkable  in  many  respects  as  they  were, 
withered  away  because  they  had  no  depth  of  root,  while 
the  civilization  of  the  West,  founded  on  Christianity 
and  the  Roman  law  leavened  by  barbarian  ideas,  grew 


THE  DREAM  OF  CHARLEMAGNE.         129 

all  the  more  vigorously  and  sturdily  because  it  grew 
slowly,  and  was  made  tougher  and  more  enduring  by 
the  very  storms  which  beat  against  it. 

The  dream  of  Charlemagne  in  establishing  his  Em- 
pire was,  as  will  be  remembered,  twofold.  He  wished 
to  bring  under  a  subjection  similar  to  that  of  the 
Roman  Empire  all  the  various  races  inhabiting  the 
wide  territories  which  he  had  inherited  or  which  he 
had  conquered,  and  for  that  purpose  he  strove  to  es- 
tablish a  system  of  centralization  in  the  administration 
of  his  government  like  that  which  had  been  adopted 
by  the  Roman  Emperors  in  the  government  of  their 
various  provinces.  This  grand  scheme  proved,  as  I 
have  said,  a  dream  only,  partly  fulfilled,  perhaps,  while 
the  iron  hand  of  the  great  master  held  together  the 
heterogeneous  mass  of  which  his  dominions  were  com- 
posed j  but  no  sooner  was  he  dead  than  the  Impe- 
rial system,  with  its  principle  of  centralization,  fell 
to  pieces.  We  cannot  explain  here  all  the  causes  of 
this  catastrophe.  It  will  readily  be  understood  that 
they  are  to  be  looked  for  in  the  totally  dissimilar  condi- 
tion of  the  population  of  the  Roman  and  of  the  Frank- 
ish  Empire.  The  only  thing  in  which  they  resembled 
each  other,  as  it  appears  to  our  eyes,  was  the  extent  of 
territory  over  which  the  chiefs  of  these  two  Empires 
ruled  respectively.  Charlemagne's  Empire  extended 
from  the  Elbe  to  the  Ebro,  and  from  the  German  Ocean 
to  nearly  the  southern  limit  of  Italy.  The  only  unity 
of  organization  which  the  wild  tribes  and  the  subject 


130  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

populations  which  inhabited  this  vast  territory  were  then 
fitted  for  was  that  brought  about  by  enforced  submission 
to  the  conqueror.  It  was  not,  as  in  the  Roman  Empire 
even  when  it  had  reached  its  widest  limits,  an  outgrowth 
of  willing  subjection  to  Roman  law  and  a  reverence  for 
the  Roman  name  and  authority  on  the  part  of  the  con- 
quered. We  find  rather  among  them  the  persistent  love 
of  independence  so  characteristic  of  all  the  German 
tribes,  the  habit  of  appealing  to  force  alone  to  accom- 
plish their  ends,  an  incapacity  to  conceive  of  that  sub- 
mission to  law  as  the  supreme  rule  which  formed  the 
real  strength  of  the  Roman  government  in  its  conquered 
territories, — barbarism,  in  short,  which,  too  ignorant  to 
comprehend,  despised  all  the  refinements  of  that  cen- 
tralized administration  which  Charlemagne,  in  his  blind 
admiration  of  the  Roman  system,  hoped  to  restore. 

The  only  surviving  son  and  successor  of  Charlemagne 
is  known  in  French  history  as  Louis  le  D^bonnaire, 
and  in  German  as  Louis  the  Pious.  He  seems  to  have 
exhibited  the  instincts  and  character  of  a  monk,  rather 
than  those  of  a  King  or  of  an  Emperor.  His  life  was 
passed  in  acts  of  devotion  to  the  Church  and  in  quarrels 
with  his  sons,  who  desired  during  his  lifetime  that  their 
future  patrimony  should  be  divided  among  them.  Each 
of  these  sons  seems  to  have  been  characterized  by  jeal- 
ousy of  the  others,  showing  itself  as  much  by  struggles 
to  secure  the  largest  share  of  his  dominions  as  by  a 
common  contempt  for  their  unfortunate  father.  Twice 
was  that  father  deposed  by  these  sons  because  he  could 


DEGENERACY  OF  HIS  DESCENDANTS.    131 

not  or  would  not  yield  his  authority  to  them ;  and  he  was 
harassed  to  that  degree  that  he  was  only  too  glad  to  look 
forward  to  the  cloister  as  a  refuge  from  their  cruelty. 
Nothing  could  show  more  completely  the  depth  of  the 
degradation  to  which  the  son  of  Charlemagne  had  fallen, 
and  his  unlikeness  to  his  father,  as  well  as  the  rapid 
degeneracy  of  the  government  of  the  great  Emperor  in 
his  hands,  than  the  willingness  of  Louis  to  retire  to  a 
monastery  and  take  the  vows  of  a  monk ;  for  by  so 
doing  he  gave  up  that  which  had  been  in  all  former 
times  the  great  source  of  pride  to  the  true  Frankish 
chief, — the  right  to  be  a  leader  of  his  countrymen  in 
battle.  The  burden  which  his  great  father  had  borne 
so  easily  crushed  him  utterly.  He  was  the  submissive 
servant  of  the  Church ;  but  the  preservation  of  the 
Imperial  power  in  the  family  of  Charlemagne  was  too 
important  to  her  interests  to  allow  us  to  suppose  that 
she  encouraged  his  extraordinary  pusillanimity  and  un- 
Franklike  conduct.  The  outlying  and  subject  popula- 
tions in  Germany  and  Spain  were  not  long  in  discover- 
ing that  the  mighty  hand  of  Charlemagne  no  longer 
governed  them,  and  the  Slaves,  the  Avars,  the  Arabs, 
and  the  Northmen  broke  out  in  revolt  against  the 
authority  of  the  new  Emperor.  Louis  made  various 
unsuccessful  attempts  to  arrange  such  a  partition  of  his 
territories  among  his  sons  as  would  prove  satisfactory  to 
them.  They  had  no  other  effect  except  to  bring  the 
Imperial  power  into  contempt.  Owing  to  the  weakness 
of  the  central  authority,  the  bonds  which  had  kept  the 


132  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

Empire  together  became  rapidly  loosened.  Many  of 
the  greater  nobles  took  the  opportunity,  in  defiance  of 
the  Emperor,  to  enlarge  the  boundaries  of  those  bene- 
fices which  had  been  confided  to  them  by  Charlemagne. 
The  result  of  all  these  movements,  due,  perhaps,  quite 
as  much  to  the  feeble  character  of  the  monarch  himself 
as  to  the  unfitness  of  the  system  of  Charlemagne  for 
such  a  rude  age,  was  that  the  Empire  of  840,  the  date 
of  the  death  of  Louis,  was  as  unlike  that  of  814,  the 
date  of  Charlemagne's  death,  as  a  man  who  is  mori- 
bund is  unlike  the  same  man  in  full  health  and  vigor. 
History  hardly  shows  so  rapid  a  decay  of  a  great  po- 
litical system. 

The  partition  made  by  Louis  le  Debonnaire,  or  the 
Pious,  of  his  Empire  among  his  three  sons  not  having, 
as  I  have  said,  proved  satisfactory  to  any  of  them,  the 
settlement  was  left  to  the  arbitrament  of  war.  And  it 
is  curious  to  remark  that  the  Church,  in  its  anxiety 
to  terminate  the  manifold  sufferings  endured  by  the 
populations  throughout  his  dominions  from  the  per- 
petual quarrels  of  those  who  were  striving  in  arms  for 
the  mastery,  solemnly  absolved  all  those  on  both  sides 
who  should  take  part  in  what  was  supposed  would 
prove  the  decisive  battle.  The  bishops  in  council,  after 
the  battle,  declared  that  the  parties  had  fought  to  secure 
justice  only,  that  the  judgment  of  God  had  manifestly 
settled  the  right,  and  that  therefore  whoever  had  taken 
part  in  the  battle,  either  by  advice  or  by  actual  fighting, 
should  be  absolved  from  all  the  penalties  prescribed  by 


THE   TREATY  OF  VERDUN.  133 

the  Church  for  such  acts.  This  seems  a  survival  of 
the  old  Frankish  and  heathen  method  of  ascertaining 
the  will  of  God ;  but  what  a  picture  of  the  civilization 
of  the  time  is  presented,  when  even  the  Church,  power- 
ful as  it  was  in  so  many  respects  in  those  days,  could 
find  no  more  Christian  method  of  settling  a  disputed 
succession  than  the  adoption  of  the  lesser  evil  of  dis- 
covering the  will  of  God  by  means  of  a  single  battle 
rather  than  by 'a  series  of  prolonged  and  bloody  wars! 
The  battle, — that  of  Fontanet,  841, — if  it  did  not  in 
itself  settle  the  question  of  the  supremacy  of  one  of  the 
brothers,  at  all  events  opened  the  way  to  a  negotiation 
among  them.  This  resulted  in  a  treaty  between  the 
sons  of  Louis,  grandsons  of  Charlemagne,  in  843,  di- 
viding the  Empire  among  them. 

This  treaty,  called  the  treaty  of  Verdun,  forms  an 
important  historical  epoch,  as  we  shall  see.  By  it  Louis, 
afterwards  called  the  German,  was  assigned  Francia 
Orientalis,  east  of  the  Rhine, — speaking  generally,  mod- 
ern Germany  ;  Charles,  afterwards  called  the  Bald,  that 
portion  of  modern  France  west  of  the  rivers  Meuse  and 
Saone  to  the  ocean  and  the  Pyrenees ;  Lothair,  who  was 
the  eldest  son,  a  long  strip  of  territory  between  those 
portions  assigned  to  his  brothers,  extending  from  the 
North  Sea  to  the  Alps,  and  embracing  modern  Bel- 
gium, Lorraine,  Burgundy,  and  Dauphiny.  Lothair 
was  given  besides,  as  the  eldest  son,  the  Emperorship, 
with  the  nominal  sovereignty  of  Italy.  The  territory 

assigned  to  him  was  one  of  a  long  and  narrow  shape, 

12 


134  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

and  hence  constantly  exposed  to  the  incursions  of  his 
neighbors,  his  own  brothers,  but  it  embraced  within  it 
his  three  capital  cities, — that  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  as  King 
of  the  Franks,  that  of  Monza  as  King  of  the  Lom- 
bards, and  that  of  Rome  as  the  Emperor  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire.  I  have  said  that  this  treaty  of  Ver- 
dun, in  843,  forms  an  important  historical  epoch ;  and  it 
does  so,  not  merely  because  it  settled  which  of  Charle- 
magne's grandsons  should  rule  certain  portions  of  his 
Empire,  but  also  because  of  the  underlying  principle 
upon  which  the  partition  was  effected,  and  the  results 
which  followed  from  it.  By  it  (1)  Europe  was  perma- 
nently divided  into  the  three  great  nationalities,  Ger- 
many, France,  and  Italy.  (2)  This  division  was  made  on 
the  principle  of  a  difference  of  race  and  language  in  the 
inhabitants  of  the  different  districts.  Teutons,  Celts, 
and  Latins  were  henceforth  to  be  governed  by  different 
rulers,  whose  first  notion  of  rule  was  prompted  by  the 
instinct  of  race,  and  who,  as  ages  went  on,  drifted  wider 
apart  and  had  less  and  less  in  common.  (3)  Modern 
Germany,  modern  France,  modern  Italy,  begin  their  life 
in  843,  the  date  of  the  treaty  of  Verdun.  From  that 
date  too,  consequently,  the  Empire  of  Charlemagne, 
although  nominally  and  for  certain  important  purposes 
still  surviving,  as  we  shall  see,  yet  for  the  object  for 
which  it  had  been  established  ceased  to  exist. 

What  concerns  us  now  is  not  so  much  the  breaking 
up  of  the  system  by  which  the  Empire  had  been  ruled, 
as  that  which  was  substituted  for  it.  Within  a  few 


SKETCH  OF  THE  FEUDAL  SYSTEM.       135 

years  after  the  death  of  Louis  le  De'bonnaire,  the  Im- 
perial system  was  replaced,  more  or  less,  in  all  parts 
of  the  former  dominions  of  Charlemagne,  by  what  is 
known  in  history  as  the  feudal  system.  This  was  the 
characteristic  system  of  government  in  Europe  during 
the  larger  portion  of  the  Middle  Age.  We  shall  have 
occasion  to  speak  hereafter  of  the  development  of  this 
system  in  Germany,  in  England,  and  in  Italy,  and  we 
shall  confine  ourselves  now  to  some  account  of  it  in 
that  portion  of  the  Empire  which  fell  in  the  partition 
at  Verdun,  843,  to  the  share  of  Charles  the  Bald, — that 
is,  as  near  as  may  be,  modern  France. 

Some  preliminary  sketch  of  the  origin  and  character- 
istic features  of  the  feudal  system  may  be  appropriate 
here.  When  the  Frankish  chiefs  and  those  of  the  other 
Teutonic  tribes  invaded  Western  Europe,  they  were  in 
the  habit  of  rewarding  the  fidelity  and  courage  of  their 
companions,  or  principal  followers, — comites,  as  they 
were  called, — who  had  aided  them  in  their  conquests. 
These  rewards  consisted  sometimes  of  horses  or  of  arms, 
but  oftener  of  lands  in  the  conquered  countries,  and 
they  were  made  probably  at  that  time  without  any 
formal  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  person  on  whom 
they  were  bestowed  of  service  to  the  chief  in  considera- 
tion of  the  gifts.  According  to  the  ancient  Teutonic 
custom,  however,  as  will  be  remembered,  it  was  con- 
sidered not  only  a  duty,  but  an  honor,  for  any  young 
warrior,  no  matter  how  high  his  lineage,  to  serve  under 
a  renowned  chief.  Such  service  was  performed  without 


136  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

any  thought  of  other  reward  than  the  approval  and 
companionship  of  the  chief,  this  relation  constituting 
military  patronage  in  the  old  sense.  The  lands  thus 
presented  to  these  warriors  were  called  allodial;  that  is, 
their  tenure  involved  no  obligation  of  service  whatever. 
But  in  the  course  of  time,  from  various  causes,  such  as 
the  diminution  of  the  number  of  warriors  in  conse- 
quence of  the  losses  suffered  during  the  perpetual  wars 
of  Charlemagne,  and  the  necessity  of  guarding  the  more 
extensive  frontiers  of  the  countries  he  conquered,  the 
following  expedient  was  adopted  to  secure  a  more  per- 
manent and  efficient  army;  and  this  forms  the  germ 
or  basis  of  the  feudal  system  proper.  Lands  were  no 
longer  bestowed  by  the  sovereign  (chief,  or  king,  or 
Emperor,  as  he  happened  to  be)  as  free  gifts.  They  were 
granted  in  the  form  of  benefices,  or  fiefs,  as  they  were 
called ;  that  is,  they  were  to  be  holdeu  upon  the  con- 
dition that  the  grantee  should,  by  virtue  of  the  grant, 
perform  certain  services  to  the  lord,  generally  of  a  mili- 
tary kind.  When  these  services  so  agreed  upon  ceased 
to  be  rendered,  the  lands  were  forfeited  to  the  original 
owner,  or  lord  of  the  fief,  as  he  was  called.  There  was 
a  peculiar  ceremony  in  the  early  days  in  the  investiture 
of  these  fiefs,  or  lands  held  in  fief,  which  is  very  signifi- 
cant, as  showing  the  new  relations  created  thereby  be- 
tween the  giver  and  the  .receiver.  He  upon  whom  the 
grant  was  to  be  bestowed  knelt  before  the  lord  who  was 
to  give  him  the  land,  and  promised  to  become  his  man, 
and  to  keep  faith  and  loyalty  towards  him  against  all 


FORM  OF  CONFERRING  FIEFS.  137 

who  might  assail  his  right,  by  every  means  ill  his  power. 
The  lord  then  made  a  reciprocal  promise  of  protection 
and  defence  of  his  vassal,  as  the  grantee  was  called, 
and  then  the  investiture  was  completed  by  a  symbolical 
delivery  to  the  new  vassal  of  a  handful  of  earth  or  the 
twig  of  a  tree.  Thus  the  ownership  of  land  and  the 
rights  and  duties  of  its  possessors  were  supposed  to  be 
firmly  bound  together.  It  may  be  observed,  too,  that 
we  here  find  the  germ  of  the  doctrine  of  reciprocal 
allegiance  and  protection  which  forms  so  important  a 
chapter  in  our  modern  law,  and  also  that  of  the  rela- 
tion of  landlord  and  tenant,  which  to-day  even  in  this 
country  is  based  upon  the  old  feudal  conception  of  lord 
and  vassal. 

The  process  I  have  described  was  that  observed  by 
the  sovereign  in  conferring  large  benefices  upon  his 
principal  officers  or  comites;  but  these  officers  sub- 
divided the  benefices  or  fiefs  so  conferred  among  their 
own  followers  and  companions,  with  the  agreement  on 
their  part  to  hold  each  of  these  divided  portions  of  the 
original  fief  of  the  person  by  whom  they  were  imme- 
diately conferred,  on  conditions  similar  to  those  by 
which  that  person  held  of  the  sovereign  or  overlord. 
These  smaller  fiefs  were  called  subinfeudations,  and 
were,  in  fact,  mere  miniatures  of  the  larger  fiefs.  In  a 
short  time  nearly  all  the  land  in  France,  from  reasons 
which  will  presently  appear,  was  held  in  fief,  either 
directly  and  immediately  of  the  king,  or  indirectly, 

by  the  freemen  of  lesser  wealth  or  inferior  nobility,  of 

12* 


138  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  grantees  of  the  king,  so  that  a  thoroughly  graded 
hierarchy,  beginning  with  the  king  and  ending  with  the 
smallest  landholder,  prevailed,  which  was  intended  to 
assure  protection  and  safety  on  the  one  side,  and  loyalty, 
allegiance,  and  stipulated  service  on  the  other. 

This  system,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  no  inge- 
nious and  speculative  device,  as  it  has  often  been  repre- 
sented, to  reduce  the  population  of  those  countries  living 
under  it  to  slavery,  but  it  was  eagerly  adopted  by  those 
who  had  an  interest  in  the  preservation  of  order,  not 
merely  as  a  method  of  counteracting  that  anarchy  which 
then  threatened  the  overthrow  of  all  settled  society,  but 
also,  and  especially,  as  the  only  effectual  method  of 
repelling  the  armed  invasions  of  the  barbarians,  and 
especially  of  the  Northmen,  which  began  again  shortly 
after  the  death  of  Charlemagne.  In  one  sense  the 
feudal  system  was  an  endeavor  to  combine  military 
efficiency  with  that  spirit  of  independence  on  the  part 
of  the  chiefs  which  was  so  characteristic  of  the  Ger- 
man warriors  in  their  native  lands.  The  object  now, 
however,  of  the  rulers — the  immediate  object — was  de- 
fence of  their  homes,  not  to  send  out  expeditions  such 
as  those  undertaken  in  the  campaigns  under  Charle- 
magne. We  shall  see  that,  as  a  system,  the  feudal 
form  of  government,  arbitrary  and  oppressive  as  we 
may  think  it,  was  in  the  beginning  a  necessity  of  the 
time.  One  of  the  best  proofs  that  it  was  such  is 
found  in  its  universal  adoption  throughout  Europe. 
Not  only  land,  but  other  kinds  of  property,  even  offices 


FEUDAL  "  COMMEND  A  TION."  139 

in  Church  and  State,  were  held  in  fief  with  a  view  to 
protection.  We  must  remember  that  after  the  death  of 
Charlemagne  there  existed  for  a  long  time  no  public 
authority  in  Europe  strong  enough  to  maintain  order 
throughout  a  large  territory,  and  that  each  chief,  who 
had  formerly  been,  perhaps,  under  the  rule  of  the  great 
Emperor,  a  firm  supporter  of  his  system  and  authority, 
now,  freed  from  his  control,  sought  only  to  increase  his 
own  lands  and  power.  The  result  was  a  perpetual  reign 
of  force,  if  not  of  terror,  a  constant  struggle  for  those 
objects,  where  might  made  right,  the  end  of  which 
was  the  survival  of  the  strongest,  and  during  which 
the  successful  pursuit  of  the  arts  of  peace  became  im- 
possible,— a  condition  of  things  which,  if  continued, 
clearly  foreshadowed  a  relapse  into  barbarism. 

There  is  a  curious  feature  in  the  early  history  of  feu- 
dalism which  shows  how  it  was  adopted  as  a  means  of 
security  and  safety  from  the  utter  lawlessness  of  the 
times.  We  read  of  many  free  proprietors  holding  lands 
by  allodial  right, — that  is  to  say,  without  any  obligation 
of  service  to  any  one  by  virtue  of  such  possession, — de- 
spairing of  any  security  and  protection  of  their  property, 
since  they  had  no  claim  to  invoke  the  aid  of  a  powerful 
chieftain  in  their  defence,  recommending  themselves,  as 
it  was  technically  called,  to  some  renowned  warrior  or 
lord ;  that  is,  abandoning  their  free  proprietorship,  and 
placing  themselves  in  the  feudal  relation  to  such  a 
chief,  conveying  to  him  their  lands  and  receiving  them 
back  from  him  in  fief,  thus  assuming  towards  him  the 


140  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

position  of  a  vassal,  and  receiving  from  him  in  return  the 
feudal  obligation  of  defence  and  protection.  This  prac- 
tice began  in  France  shortly  after  the  death  of  Charle- 
magne, and  was  formally  recognized  and  sanctioned  by 
Charles  the  Bald  by  what  is  called  the  Edict  of  Mersen, 
in  847.  It  was  there  provided  that  every  freeman  (that 
is,  every  one  possessed  of  allodial  lands)  might  choose 
a  lord,  who  should  be  either  the  king  or  one  of  his 
vassals  as  he  might  deem  best,  and  that  no  direct  or 
immediate  vassal  of  the  king  should  be  obliged  to 
serve  under  him  in  war,  unless  against  a  foreign  enemy. 
This  edict,  while  it  shows  the  disintegration  of  the 
royal  power  and  proves  how  the  nobility  profited  from 
it  by  transferring  the  armed  force  of  the  nation  to  itself, 
also  makes  it  clear  that  at  that  time  the  landholders 
could  find  safety  only  by  uniting  their  interests,  and 
establishing  among  themselves  the  reciprocal  obligation 
of  service  on  the  one  side  and  protection  on  the  other. 

The  practice  of  conveying  the  royal  domain — that  is, 
the  lands  belonging  to  the  crown — in  fief  to  the  great 
lords,  and  thus  dividing  the  territory  into  a  number  of 
comparatively  small  sovereignties,  was  carried  on,  either 
as  a  matter  of  policy  or  of  necessity,  by  all  the  degen- 
erate descendants  of  Charlemagne  in  France,  until  no 
land  was  left  to  the  ownership  or  under  the  immediate 
rule  of  the  king  of  the  vast  inheritance  of  the  great 
Emperor  save  the  city  of  Laon,  which  became  the  capi- 
tal of  his  nominal  kingdom.  France,  indeed,  ceased 
to  be  a  kingdom  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  word.  Its 


FEUDAL    CHARACTERISTICS.  141 

territory  became  totally  dismembered  or  disintegrated, 
and  was  divided  at  the  close  of  the  ninth  century  into 
twenty-nine  great  fiefs,  which  had  increased  in  number 
a  hundred  years  later  to  fifty-five.  Duchies,  counties, 
viscounties,  and  lordships,  in  which  sovereigns  succeeded 
sovereigns  by  hereditary  right,  and  distinct  laws  and 
customs,  all  of  course  at  the  expense  of  the  central  or 
royal  authority,  were  regularly  established  therein.  Thus 
France  under  this  system  became  a  mere  congeries  of 
distinct  governments,  the  will  of  the  chief  in  each  being 
practically  the  only  law,  and  this  will  was  enforced  by 
the  power  of  the  sword.  The  populations  within  them 
(except,  of  course,  the  serfs,  who  were  regarded  as  mere 
chattels)  were  bound  together  in  the  relation  of  lord  and 
vassal,  the  principal  object  being  protection. 

The  fiefs  do  not  seem  at  first  to  have  been  hereditary, 
but  they  became  so  as  soon  as  the  system  was  in  full  vigor. 
If  the  lands  only  had  descended  from  father  to  son,  the 
mischief,  as  the  system  became  firmly  rooted,  would  not 
have  been  as  serious  as  history  proves  it  to  have  been. 
But  not  only  were  the  lands  hereditary  with  the  services 
due  for  them,  but  the  title,  and  the  powers  of  government 
also,  descended  to  the  possessors  with  the  lands.  This 
absolute  and  almost  arbitrary  jurisdiction  within  their 
fiefs,  thus  transmissible  to  their  children  by  the  pos- 
sessors of  the  great  fiefs,  might  remain  uncontrolled  in 
incapable  families  for  generations,  or  such  charges,  as 
they  were  called,  might  be,  and  were  often,  sold  when 
these  haughty  barons  required  money.  This  method  of 


142  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

governing  and  of  administering  the  law  under  the  claim 
of  hereditary  right  by  each  feudal  chieftain  was  always 
regarded  as  one  of  the  greatest  practical  grievances  in 
France  down  to  the  time  of  the  Revolution;  and,  indeed, 
the  abuses  which  were  inseparable  from  the  working  of 
the  feudal  machinery,  and  especially  this  part  of  it,  even 
reduced  as  they  were  under  Richelieu  and  Louis  XIV., 
were  among  the  principal  causes  which  produced  that 
catastrophe.  There  is  said  to  be  but  one  form  of  gov- 
ernment in  history  which  meets  the  universal  condemna- 
tion of  all  ruled  by  it ;  and  that  is  the  feudal  system. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  in  the  partition  of  France 
into  feudatories  the  king  was  ignored.  He,  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  system,  was  its  head,  from  whom  all 
authority  theoretically  descended.  He  was  the  fountain 
of  honor,  justice,  and  authority.  He  was  called  the 
suzerain,  or  overlord,  and  those  who  did  homage  to  him 
directly  and  personally  for  their  fiefs  were  called  grand 
vassals,  and  bound  by  virtue  of  that  homage  to  obey  and 
support  him ;  but  such  grand  vassals  as  the  Dukes  of 
Burgundy  and  of  Aquitaine  and  the  Counts  of  Cham- 
pagne and  of  Flanders,  having  within  their  territories 
all  the  royal  rights,  such  as  that  of  making  war,  of 
coining  money,  of  making  general  laws  and  enforcing 
them  by  means  of  their  own  tribunals,  and  who  were 
exempt  from  the  payment  of  public  taxes,  were  not 
likely  to  pay  much  heed  to  the  orders  of  a  nominal 
superior,  whose  claim  to  rule  them  rested  upon  little 
else  than  the  title  of  king  and  the  possession  of  some 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  FIEFS.  143 

small  remnant  of  the  former  vast  royal  domain.  Prac- 
tically, the  feudal  system  made  the  owner  of  a  piece  of 
land,  large  or  small,  the  absolute  sovereign  of  those  who 
dwelt  thereon. 

The  difference  between  the  later  Carlovingians  and 
Hugh  Capet  in  their  power  over  their  turbulent  nobles 
was  this,  that  the  first,  although  descendants  of  Charle- 
magne, possessed  only,  as  has  been  said,  the  insignif- 
icant town  of  Laon,  while  the  other  was  the  feudal 
lord  of  the  duchy  of  France,  the  largest  fief  in  the 
kingdom.  We  must  conceive  of  the  whole  territory  of 
France  as  feudalized, — that  is,  divided  and  subdivided 
into  larger  and  smaller  fiefs,  nominally  constituting  a 
complete  hierarchy,  with  a  gradation  of  powers  and 
responsibilities,  in  which  each  landholder  obeyed  some 
one  above  him,  and  he  in  turn  was  obeyed  by  others 
beneath  him,  but  where  in  point  of  fact  the  law  of  force 
in  their  relations  with  their  co-feudatories  and  all  save 
their  own  vassals  prevailed,  the  right  which  they  most 
jealously  guarded  being  that  of  private  war  with  each 
other. 

Of  life  within  these  fiefs,  especially  that  of  the 
villeins  and  the  serfs  on  the  domain,  I  shall  speak 
more  particularly  when  I  come  to  discuss  the  peculiar 
condition  of  mediaeval  agriculture  and  industry;  and 
I  shall  have  occasion  also  to  show  hereafter  how  the 
Church,  with  its  ministries,  was  the  light  of  ages  made 
dark  by  the  rule  of  the  feudal  chiefs.  It  is  only  neces- 
sary to  say  here  that  the  practical  working  of  such  a 


144  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

system  could  only  tend  to  develop  and  strengthen  some 
of  the  worst  traits  of  the  barbarous  Teutonic  invaders 
when  they  were  transformed  into  feudal  lords.  I  do 
not  forget  all  that  has  been  said  of  the  love  of  domestic 
life,  of  the  reverence  for  woman,  of  the  much-vaunted 
influence  of  chivalry  and  knighthood  in  this  age,  all  of 
which,  it  is  claimed,  became  firmly  rooted  in  European 
life  and  society  by  the  peculiarities  of  the  feudal  system; 
but,  after  all,  the  shadow  of  barbarism  which  was  cast 
by  the  terrible  realities  of  life  in  those  days  of  inse- 
curity and  lawlessness  makes  the  picture  a  very  dark 
one.  Civilization  in  its  true  sense — that  is,  the  highest 
type  of  social  life  possible  under  the  conditions  of  an- 
cient or  mediaeval  days — must  generally  be  looked  for 
in  the  cities  and  not  in  the  country.  There  is  hardly  a 
greater  difference  between  the  agora  of  the  Greek  cities, 
or  the  Roman  forum,  and  the  feudal  castle  than  is  to  be 
found  between  the  free  and  public  life  of  the  Greeks  or 
Romans  and  that  led  by  the  knights  of  the  Middle  Age 
in  their  gloomy  fortresses. 

I  have  endeavored  to  show  how  little  real  or  perma- 
nent union  there  was  among  the  holders  of  the  different 
fiefs  for  any  common  object,  although  the  very  theory  of 
this  system  required  a  gradation  of  rank  among  free 
warriors,  the  object  of  which  was  to  secure  a  common 
protection  of  their  possessions,  each  contributing  to 
make  the  military  system  of  defence  efficient  for  all. 

The  military  power  of  the  feudal  system  to  resist  a 
formidable  invasion  was  put  to  a  very  severe  test  in 


INVASIONS  OF  THE  NORTHMEN.          145 

France  just  as  it  was  beginning  to  supplant  the  Imperial 
system  of  Charlemagne.  The  occasion  was  found  in  the 
long-continued  and  most  destructive  incursions  of  the 
Northmen,  who,  as  soon  as  Charlemagne  had  died, 
attacked  with  constantly-increasing  force,  nearly  every 
year,  for  many  years,  the  coasts  of  France  and  Germany, 
ascending  the  rivers  in  their  light  boats,  penetrating  far 
inland  in  search  of  plunder,  devastating  large  towns,  and 
burning  monasteries  and  churches.  There  seems  to  have 
been  little  effectual  resistance  made  by  those  in  power  in 
France  to  these  assaults.  The  invaders  held  the  whole 
course  of  the  Seine  as  far  as  Paris,  which  they  besieged 
three  times ;  they  destroyed  Bordeaux ;  they  established 
themselves  on  the  banks  of  the  Loire ;  and  finally  they 
took  permanent  possession  of  the  finest  province  in 
France, — that  of  Normandy,  whose  very  name,  which 
they  gave  it,  is  a  perpetual  memorial  of  their  victorious 
prowess.  When  we  remember  that  these  Northmen 
must  have  been  comparatively  few  in  number,  since 
they  came  in  ships, — that,  after  all,  they  were  only  the 
rear-guard  of  that  vast  army  of  barbarian  invaders 
which  for  centuries  had  assailed  the  Roman  Empire, 
the  last  remnant  of  which  it  had  been  hoped  Charle- 
magne had  destroyed  on  the  banks  of  the  Elbe, — that 
the  races  they  attacked  in  France  and  Germany  were  of 
the  same  blood  and  habits  as  themselves,  and  were  in 
point  of  fact  only  the  advanced  portion  of  that  same 
army  of  invasion  to  which  these  Northmen  belonged, 
— when  one  reflects  upon  all  these  things,  he  is  at  a  loss 

13 


146  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

to  understand  why  the  plundering  incursions  of  these 
piratical  rovers  were  not  checked,  especially  in  France. 
The  truth  is,  that  the  resistance  was  not  more  effective 
simply  because  its  organization  was  not  intelligent  and 
vigorous.  While  the  descendants  of  Charlemagne  were 
quarrelling  with  each  other  over  the  partition  of  his 
Empire,  the  great  lords  were  seizing  the  opportunity 
to  enlarge  their  domains  at  the  expense  of  the  royal 
rights  and  territory,  and  each  of  the  leaders  was  en- 
gaged in  an  ignoble  scramble  for  more  land  and  more 
power.  No  one  was  willing  or  strong  enough  to  pro- 
vide for  the  safety  of  all  when  it  was  threatened  by 
these  fierce  invaders  with  a  common  havoc.  The  utter 
inefficiency  of  the  later  Carlovingians  in  their  attempts 
to  repel  these  invasions,  which  threatened  soon  to  make 
France  a  desert  of  desolation,  and  the  skill,  bravery, 
and  success  of  several  members  of  one  family  among 
their  greatest  feudatories — that  of  Robert  le  Fort,  or 
Capet — in  rescuing  the  country  from  the  danger  of 
ruin,  were  the  principal  causes  of  the  transfer  of  the 
royal  authority  in  France  from  the  second  to  the  third 
race,  as  it  is  called,  that  is,  from  the  descendants  of 
Charlemagne  to  those  of  Robert  and  Hugh  Capet,  and 
of  retaining  the  crown  in  that  family  for  nearly  a 
thousand  years,  or  until  Louis  XVI.  perished  on  the 
scaffold,  in  1793. 

The  first  Capet  in  history  was  the  one  appointed  by 
Charles  the  Bald  to  defend  the  Mark,  as  the  territory 
watered  by  the  river  Seine  was  then  called,  from  the 


SERVICES  OF  THE  FAMILY  OF  CAPET.    147 

incursions  of  the  Northmen.  It  was  given  to  him  in  fief 
and  called  the  Duchy  of  France.  It  was  in  the  defence 
of  this  frontier  that  he  acquired  fame  for  himself  and 
power  for  his  family.  In  his  arduous  service  against 
these  wild  and  hitherto  unsubdued  pirates  he  became  the 
true  savior  of  France.  Robert  Capet  was  a  statesman 
as  well  as  a  great  warrior.  The  Northmen  having  been 
defeated,  Hollo,  their  chief,  at  his  suggestion,  was  made 
the  feudal  Duke  of  Normandy,  a  measure  which  soon 
brought  to  a  close  the  piratical  expeditions  and  made 
in  a  few  generations  the  Normans  the  most  French  of 
Frenchmen. 

The  victories  of  the  family  of  Capet,  Dukes  of 
France,  pointed  out  its  chiefs  as  the  natural  succes- 
sors of  the  feeble  and  unfortunate  Carlovingians.  The 
tenth  century  is  filled  with  the  quarrels  between  them 
and  the  house  of  Capet,  whose  power  and  consideration 
increased  with  every  step,  and  in  987  Hugh  Capet 
was  elected  by  the  great  vassals  King  of  France,  and 
the  house  of  Charlemagne  became  extinct,  the  last 
heir  being  confined  in  a  monastery,  a  convenient  way 
adopted  in  those  days  of  getting  rid  of  a  troublesome 
pretender.  It  will  be  understood  that  the  title  of  king 
added  little  to  the  real  power  of  Hugh  Capet.  That 
rested,  as  has  been  said,  upon  his  possession  of  the 
duchy  of  France,  the  largest  and  most  important  and 
most  central  of  all  the  fiefs,  and  upon  a  recognition  of 
his  services  and  those  of  his  family  by  the  other  great 
vassals.  The  annals  of  the  kingdom  of  France  as  it 


148  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY, 

existed  under  the  first  four  Capetiens  are  singularly  bare 
of  events  of  historical  importance,  either  at  home  or 
abroad.  It  is  true  that  during  this  period  England 
was  conquered  by  the  Norman-French,  and  that  many 
Frenchmen,  some  of  them  great  vassals,  were  engaged 
in  the  early  Crusades ;  but  the  expedition  against  Eng- 
land was  undertaken  by  the  Duke  of  Normandy  without 
either  the  aid  or  the  control  of  the  King  of  France,  and 
it  was  not  until  the  days  of  Philip  Augustus  (1180),  of 
Louis  VIII.  (1223),  and  of  St.  Louis  (1236)  that  the 
French  kings  led  a  national  army  to  the  rescue  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre.  How  little  the  kingdom  of  France 
in  the  modern  sense  existed  during  the  feudal  regime 
may  be  illustrated  by  a  statement  of  the  geographical 
position  of  the  great  fiefs  by  which  Hugh  Capet  and  his 
successors  found  themselves  surrounded  for  more  than  a 
hundred  years  in  their  duchy  of  France.  That  duchy 
extended  from  the  English  Channel  to  some  distance 
below  the  present  city  of  Orleans,  sixty  or  seventy  miles 
south  of  Paris.  It  was  hemmed  in  on  the  northeast  by 
the  county  of  Flanders,  on  the  east  by  that  of  Cham- 
pagne, and  on  the  west  by  the  great  dukedom  of  Nor- 
mandy. To  the  southeast  was  the  duchy  of  Burgundy. 
Farther  south,  on  the  west,  below  the  river  Loire,  were 
the  duchies  of  Aquitaine  and  Gascony,  and  the  coun- 
ties of  Languedoc,  Provence,  and  Dauphiny,  under  the 
Counts  of  Toulouse. 

Another  curious  feature  of  the  denationalizing  char- 
acter of  the  feudal  system  in  France  is  found  in  this, 


ENGLISH  KINGS,  FEUDAL  LORDS  IN  FRANCE.  149 

that  the  King  of  England  was  the  real  governor  or 
feudal  sovereign  of  nearly  half  of  the  present  territory 
of  France  during  almost  a  century.  For  the  English 
Plantagenet  kings  were  legally  Dukes  of  Normandy  as 
descendants  of  William  the  Conqueror,  Counts  of  Anjou 
as  heirs  of  the  Empress  Matilda,  who  had  married  Guy, 
commonly  called  Plantagenet,  the  lord  of  that  county, 
and  Dukes  of  Guienne  or  Aquitaine  because  Henry  II. 
of  England  had  married  Eleanor,  the  divorced  wife  of 
Louis  VII.,  who  was  the  heiress  of  that  duchy.  The 
King  of  England  never  hesitated  to  recognize  the  King 
of  France  as  his  suzerain  in  that  country,  just  as  any 
other  of  the  grand  vassals  of  his  crown  would  have 
done;  and  when  at  last  Philip  Augustus,  in  1204,  deter- 
mined to  annex  Normandy  to  the  crown,  his  object  was 
accomplished  by  the  regular  process  of  the  feudal  law. 
John,  King  of  England,  was  summoned,  as  Duke  of 
Normandy  and  lord  of  other  fiefs  in  France,  to  appear 
before  a  court  composed  of  the  twelve  highest  nobles  in 
the  kingdom,  and  was  accused  of  having  with  his  own 
hand  killed  the  lawful  heir,  his  nephew,  Prince  Arthur, 
and  thus  having  forfeited  his  fiefs  to  the  crown:  He  did 
not  appear,  and  the  fiefs  were  accordingly  confiscated  to 
the  crown  and  taken  possession  of  by  the  royal  authority, 
and  thus  became  wholly  French. 

It  will  be  seen  hereafter  that  modern  France,  as  to  its 
territory,  has  been  made  up  by  a  process  of  absorption 
of  quasi-independent  fiefs  and  their  annexation  to  the 

crown,  and  that  this  process  was  going  on  slowly  from 

13* 


150  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  time  of  Hugh  Capet  until  that  of  Louis  XII., — 987- 
1500, — a  period  of  five  hundred  years.  It  is  impossible 
here  to  enumerate  all  the  causes  which  produced  this 
great  change,  a  change  which  makes  the  contrast  in 
political  opinion  and  ideas  between  mediaeval  and  modern 
France  quite  as  striking  as  the  changes  in  her  territorial 
jurisdiction.  I  can  only  indicate  the  direction  of  the 
stream  of  tendency,  and  that  may  be  said,  generally,  to 
have  been  towards  an  aggrandizement  of  the  power  of  the 
king  and  of  a  centralized  administration  at  the  expense 
of  the  authority  of  the  great  feudatories  and  the  gradu- 
ally increasing  power  of  the  tiers-etat.  The  abuses  were 
so  great  in  the  system,  the  king's  authority  was  so  en- 
tirely nominal,  the  obligations  of  justice  and  right  were  so 
entirely  disregarded  in  the  arbitrary  exercise  of  the  lord's 
power,  the  evils  of  all  kinds  threatening  anarchy  were  of 
such  a  galling  and  practical  kind,  that  we  are  surprised 
that  resistance  was  not  offered  sooner  than  it  was. 

The  king,  as  suzerain  or  overlord,  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  powerless.  Apparently,  resistance  came  first  from 
the  towns,  or  communes,  as  they  were  called,  all  being 
then  under  feudal  subjection,  and  presenting,  of  course, 
wherever  there  was  any  trade  or  industry  in  the  town, 
great  temptation  to  plunder.  It  is  instructive  to  know 
that  the  very  first  town  that  resisted  (about  the  year 
1 109)  because  the  tyranny  of  its  feudal  superior  was  no 
longer  endurable  was  one  that  had  a  bishop  for  sei- 
gneur or  lord,  the  old  city  of  Laon,  the  last  stronghold 
and  refuge  of  the  Carlovingian  kings,  and  then  a  place 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE   TOWNS.          151 

of  considerable  importance.  The  subject  of  the  rise  of 
free  cities  is  a  very  large  one,  especially  with  reference 
to  its  far-reaching  result  on  the  general  progress  of 
civilization.  We  can  only  speak  now  of  that  aspect  of 
it  which  has  to  do  with  the  resistance  of  these  cities  to 
feudal  oppression,  and  the  evidence  it  affords  of  their 
strength.  The  revolt  of  the  city  of  Laon  against  its 
feudal  lord,  the  bishop,  will  illustrate  what  was  done, 
and  done  successfully,  during  the  twelfth  century  by 
one-third  of  all  the  towns  in  France  with  the  same 
object  and  generally  with  the  same  result.  The  inhab- 
itants, weary  of  their  misrule,  taking  advantage  of  the 
absence  of  their  lord,  met  and  established  a  representa- 
tive municipal  government  of  their  own,  and  then  pur- 
chased the  feudal  right  of  lordship  from  the  seigneur 
and  transferred  it  to  the  government  which  they  them- 
selves had  substituted  for  it,  in  trust  for  their  benefit. 
They  then  paid  to  the  king,  Louis  VII.  (about  A.D. 
1137),  as  suzerain,  or  overlord,  a  certain  sum  of  money 
for  a  patent  or  charter  confirming  the  legality  of  the 
new  govern  aunt  which  they  had  established.  There 
were  many  and  long  struggles  in  this  town  and  in 
the  others  which  had  adopted  similar  measures  before 
the  affranchisement  des  communes  was  fully  settled  as 
against  the  lords ;  but  this  was  one  of  those  revolutions 
which  do  not  go  backward,  and  in  its  results  one  of  the 
most  fruitful  in  the  history  of  the  age.  It  ended  not 
merely  in  taking  away  from  the  feudal  nobles  the  most 
important  source  of  their  revenues,  derived  from  the 


152  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

arbitrary  taxation  of  the  wealth  of  the  towns,  but  it 
transferred  also  the  power  over  the  inhabitants  for  cer- 
tain purposes  to  the  king,  while  the  franchises  of  the 
inhabitants  were  secured  by  a  representative  system  of 
government.  The  bourgeoisie  of  the  towns  had  evi- 
dently found  the  joints  in  the  heavy  armor  of  their 
oppressors,  and  the  king  and  the  bourgeoisie,  bound  by 
a  common  interest,  lost  no  opportunity  of  assailing,  as 
occasion  presented,  the  overgrown  pretensions  of  these 
petty  local  despots. 

The  Crusades,  like  the  rise  of  the  free  cities,  had  much 
to  do  with  lessening  the  power  and  independence  of  the 
higher  feudal  nobility.  The  Crusades  were  a  popular 
movement,  and  vast  multitudes  of  serfs  no  doubt  gained 
their  freedom  by  becoming  Crusaders,  the  universal 
military  code  in  all  ages,  I  believe,  providing  that  none 
but  a  freeman  can  be  a  warrior.  Besides,  the  feudal 
chiefs,  as  the  Crusades  went  on,  took  part  in  them,  and 
they  needed  money  to  appear  with  befitting  dignity  as 
leaders  and  to  provide  for  the  equipment  of  their  re- 
tainers. But  the  money  was  in  the  hands  of  the  bour- 
geoisie of  the  great  towns,  not  in  those  of  the  lords. 
A  principle  of  feudal  law  prohibited  the  conferring  of 
a  fief  upon  any  person  not  noble  (roturiers,  as  they  were 
called).  How,  then,  was  the  money  to  be  secured  by 
the  seigneur,  who,  of  course,  had  nothing  but  his  lands 
to  offer  in  order  to  obtain  it?  Philip  Augustus,  one 
of  the  most  treacherous  but  one  of  the  ablest  kings 
France  ever  had,  solved  the  difficulty  by  decreeing  that 


ROTURIERS  BECOME  NOBLES.  153 

the  royal  investiture  of  any  man  with  a  fief  should  raise 
him  at  once  from  the  rank  of  a  roturier  to  that  of  a 
noble.  This  policy  was  carried  out  on  a  large  scale 
soon  after,  and  of  course  was  a  fatal  blow  to  feudalism, 
as  the  hereditary  right  to  certain  powers  and  dignities 
was  no  longer  exclusively  possessed  by  those  of  noble 
birth.  As  a  result,  these  powers  and  jurisdictions,  or 
rather  the  lands  which  conferred  them,  were  not  con- 
fined to  a  particular  caste,  but  could  be  bought  and  sold 
like  other  things,  and  the  question  became,  not  who  had 
the  longest  pedigree,  but  who  had  the  best-filled  purse. 
It  was  soon  found  out,  too,  that  roturiers  could  fight  in 
a  cause  which  they  had  at  heart  quite  as  well  on  foot  as 
the  knights  did  on  horseback ;  and  the  weavers  of  Flan- 
ders at  the  battle  of  Courtray  (1302),  and  the  English 
yeomen  at  Crecy  and  at  Poitiers  (1346),  proved  clearly 
-that  the  true  military  strength  of  a  country  did  not  lie 
in  its  armed  knights  and  their  feudal  array,  but  in  the 
efficient  military  organization  of  its  people. 

The  preponderance  of  the  feudal  system,  as  represent- 
ing a  power  in  France  which  was  exercised  by  numerous 
petty  sovereigns,  each  practically  supreme  within  his 
own  sphere,  exercising  authority  for  his  own  purposes, 
and  setting  at  defiance  both  the  power  of  the  king  and 
disregarding  any  claim  to  political  rights  on  the  part 
of  the  tiers-Mat,  or  non-noble  class,  ceased  during  the 
hundred-years'  war  between  England  and  France  (in 
1328),  undertaken  to  maintain  the  claim  of  Edward 
III.  to  the  French  crown.  The  direct  evidence  of 


154  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

this  great  change  is  found  in  the  ennobling  of  roturiers 
and  their  investiture  with  fiefs,  as  well  as  in  the 
growing  power  of  the  crown,  due  chiefly  to  the  annex- 
ation of  the  fiefs  of  some  of  the  greater  nobles  to  it. 
It  is  to  be  seen  also  in  the  frequent  convocations  of 
the  States-General  or  Parliament  of  France,  in  which 
the  representatives  of  the  towns,  or  the  tiers-etat,  occu- 
pied a  position  of  as  great  influence  theoretically  in  the 
settlement  of  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom  as  the  nobles 
and  clergy,  as  well  as  in  the  growth  and  greater  relative 
importance  of  the  towns  themselves,  and  in  the  revolt 
of  the  peasants, — La  Jacquerie,  as  it  was  called.  All 
this  goes  to  show  that,  while  the  feudal  power  in  France 
still  remained  strong,  the  exclusive  feudal  privilege  of 
governing  the  country  with  no  other  object  than  the 
aggrandizement  of  the  power  of  the  local  feudal  chief- 
tains was  beginning  to  give  way. 

During  the  hundred-years'  war  the  kings,  and  es- 
pecially Charles  V.  (called  le  Sage),  thought  to  add  to 
the  means  of  defending  the  kingdom  by  curtailing  as 
far  as  possible  the  privileges  of  the  nobles  and  by  in- 
creasing those  of  the  bourgeois.  Perhaps  the  utter  inca- 
pacity and  feebleness  of  the  nobility  shown  during  the 
wars  with  the  English,  their  division  into  parties  for 
and  against  foreign  invasion,  and  the  ruin  and  distress 
they  brought  upon  the  country  which  it  was  their  duty 
to  defend,  deprived  them  at  last  of  the  only  pretext — 
that  of  their  services  as  defenders  of  the  realm — upon 
which  they  could  base  the  claim  to  the  maintenance  of 


THE   WORK  OF  JEANNE  D'ARC.          155 

the  extravagant  privileges  which  their  order  had  so  long 
enjoyed.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  instinct  of  nation- 
ality and  the  destruction  of  the  claim  of  this  exclusive 
and  privileged  class  to  be  regarded  as  the  true  defenders 
of  the  country  were  born  in  the  French  mind  at  the 
same  time.  More  curious  still  is  it  that,  when  France 
was  torn  to  pieces  by  the  quarrels  of  the  Burgundians 
and  the  Armagnacs  and  by  the  frightful  excesses  of  the 
English  invaders,  a  young  peasant-girl  should  have 
revived  the  hopes  of  the  country,  then  brought  to  the 
verge  of  ruin  by  the  criminal  ambition  of  the  haugh- 
tiest of  her  nobles.  When  these  nobles  had  long  failed 
to  rescue  France,  she  raised  the  fortunes  of  the  king 
and  inspired  her  countrymen  with  such  enthusiasm 
that  they  were  able  to  make  a  united  effort  to  drive  out 
the  stranger,  so  that  the  lost  provinces  were  recovered, 
and  the  English  reigned  no  longer  in  France.  There 
are  many  aspects  of  the  story  of  Jeanne  d'Arc  which 
remind  us,  as  we  recall  them,  almost  of  the  enthusiasm 
aroused  by  the  message  of  an  inspired  prophet ;  yet  cer- 
tainly on  no  surer  basis  can  her  fame  rest  in  history  than 
that  she  was  the  first  apostle  in  France  of  that  sentiment 
of  national  unity  binding  all  her  children  together,  in 
opposition  to  the  separatism  of  the  feudal  policy,  which 
modern  Frenchmen  at  least  believe  to  be  not  merely 
the  nurse  of  all  patriotism,  but  the  inspiring  motive  of 
that  ardent  desire  so  characteristic  of  their  countrymen 
at  all  times  to  be  the  leaders  of  civilization  in  Europe. 
The  political  importance  of  the  feudal  nobles  did  not, 


156  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

of  course,  cease  with  the  loss  of  many  of  the  important 
powers  of  government  which  they  possessed  during  the 
Middle  Age.  They  retained,  indeed,  many  of  their 
seignorial  rights  and  jurisdictions  until  they  came  into 
conflict  with  Richelieu  and  his  system  of  centralization. 
Under  his  powerful  rule  every  claim  which  interfered 
with  the  full  exercise  of  the  royal  centralized  author- 
ity was  disallowed,  and  the  castles  were  razed  to  the 
ground.  The  French  nobles  had  for  more  than  four 
hundred  years  to  fight  hard  to  maintain  their  recognition 
as  a  class, — the  leading  class  in  the  government  of  the 
country, — and  for  the  preservation  of  such  of  their 
privileges  as  were  not  regarded  as  inconsistent  with  the 
supremacy  of  the  crown.  At  last  the  Revolution  de- 
stroyed them  as  a  distinct  order  or  class  in  the  nation, 
because  it  was  felt  that  whatever  services  their  ancestors 
might  have  rendered  to  France, — and  none  were  greater, 
as  we  have  seen,  than  those  of  the  founder  of  the  family 
of  the  unfortunate  king  (Louis  Capet,  as  his  judges  de- 
risively called  him), — still  all  that  remained  at  the  close 
of  the  eighteenth  century  was  privilege  without  service, 
than  which  nothing  can  be  more  odious. 

We  sometimes  hear  it  said  that  the  natural  limits,  as 
they  are  called,  of  modern  France,  should  be  those  of 
ancient  Gaul, — viz.,  the  Alps,  the  Pyrenees,  the  Rhine, 
and  the  ocean.  But  if  I  have  succeeded  in  showing 
how  modern  France,  as  distinct  from  the  country  of 
the  ancient  Franks,  was  formed,  it  will  be  inferred  that 
the  process  by  which  this  result  was  reached  was  one 


NATURAL  BOUNDARIES.  157 

of  simple  absorption,  and  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
natural  boundaries.  Beginning  with  the  fief  of  Hugh 
Capet  or  his  ancestor  Robert  in  987  (the  Duchy  of 
France),  we  find  all  the  provinces  in  turn  absorbed  and 
annexed  to  the  crown:  Normandy,  Champagne,  Tou- 
raine,  and  Languedoc  during  the  thirteenth  century; 
Poitou,  Saintonge,  the  Lyonnese,  and  Dauphiny  in  the 
fourteenth;  Maine,  Anjou,  Guienne,  Gascony,  and  Pro- 
vence in  the  fifteenth ;  and  the  remaining  great  fiefs  or 
provinces  at  still  later  periods. 


14 


CHAPTEE    VI. 

GERMANY,   FEUDAL   AND   IMPERIAL,. 

THE  partition  of  the  Empire  of  Charlemagne  among 
his  grandsons  was  made  by  the  treaty  of  Verdun  in 
843.  By  the  agreement  then  entered  into,  the  foun- 
dations of  modern  France,  Germany,  and  Italy  were 
laid.  Some  account  has  been  given  of  the  immediate 
results  of  the  partition,  and  especially  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  feudal  system  in  France.  It  is  now  pro- 
posed to  speak  of  some  of  the  characteristic  features 
of  the  history  of  Germany  during  the  Middle  Age, 
beginning  with  the  division  of  Charlemagne's  Empire 
in  843. 

We  are  so  accustomed  to  look  upon  France  and  Ger- 
many not  merely  as  distinct  countries,  but  as  differing 
from  each  other  so  completely  in  all  those  characteristic 
features  which  go  to  make  up  a  nationality,  that  it  is 
not  easy  to  conceive  a  state  of  things  in  Europe  at  any 
period  of  history  when  they  had  much  in  common. 
It  is  nevertheless  true  that  they  had  both  lived  under 
the  same  kings — the  kings  of  the  Franks — for  nearly 
five  centuries,  that  the  same  forms  of  government  pre- 
vailed among  them,  that  they  had  both  been  ruled  by 
the  great  Charlemagne,  that  the  greater  part  of  the 

population  in  both  belonged  to  the  same  race,  and  that 
158 


GERMAN  AND  FRENCH  FEUDALISM.      159 

each  branch  of  the  family  into  which  the  Frankish 
tribes  were  divided  by  the  treaty  of  843  claims  even  to 
this  day  Charlemagne  as  its  special  type  and  represen- 
tative, and  his  glory  as  that  of  its  founder.  Besides, 
after  their  separation,  that  feudal  system  which  was  the 
outgrowth  of  the  confusion  arising  from  the  weakness 
and  decay  of  the  Imperial  system  was  characterized  by 
the  same  forms,  institutions,  and  peculiarities  in  both 
those  two  great  •  divisions  of  the  Empire  afterwards 
known  as  France  and  Germany.  So  true  is  this  in 
regard  to  the  constitution  of  the  feudal  form  of  gov- 
ernment that  a  description  of  its  peculiar  organization 
and  the  sphere  of  its  operation  in  one  of  these  countries 
will  serve  generally  to  explain  its  course  and  develop- 
ment in  the  other.  What  I  have  said,  therefore,  in 
regard  to  the  feudal  system  in  France  may  be  applied, 
with  little  qualification,  to  the  beginnings  at  least  of 
that  system  in  Germany.  These  two  countries  have 
drifted  apart  very  widely  since  the  days  of  Charle- 
magne's grandsons ;  but  we  must,  if  we  wish  to  study 
history  aright,  remember  that  they  had,  if  not  a  com- 
mon origin  in  race,  at  least  for  many  generations  a 
common  rule  and  common  ideas  of  government,  and 
that  the  process  which  has  now  for  a  long  time  made 
their  relations  to  each  other  those  of  hate  and  rivalry 
was  a  slow  one. 

The  reasons  which  led  to  the  adoption  by  two  great 
branches  of  the  Frankish  family — East  Franks,  West 
Franks, — Germany  and  France — of  the  feudal  form  of 


160  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

government  were  common  to  both.  The  history  of  the 
beginnings  of  this  system  is  the  same  in  both,  but  the 
final  outcome  was  very  different,  and  the  contrast  in  the 
methods  of  its  development  in  the  two  countries  forms 
one  of  the  most  instructive  and  interesting  chapters  in 
history.  The  results,  from  causes  which  we  shall  have  to 
investigate,  were  in  some  respects  wholly  opposite.  In 
France,  as  I  have  explained,  the  force  during  the  Middle 
Age  was  centripetal,  or  tending  towards  the  centre,  at 
least  in  the  latter  period;  in  Germany,  that  force  was 
always  centrifugal,  and  all  power  of  cohesion  between 
the  several  parts  became  gradually  destroyed.  In  France, 
as  the  feudal  life  ran  its  course,  everything  gradually 
tended  to  unity,  monarchy,  centralization ;  in  Germany, 
the  spirit  of  locality,  separatism,  decentralization,  pre- 
vailed. France  comes  out  of  the  Middle  Age  into  mod- 
ern history,  after  a  struggle  of  seven  centuries,  strong, 
united,  intensely  national;  Germany,  on  the  contrary, 
split  up  into  hundreds  of  little  principalities,  with  hardly 
closer  relations  to  their  Emperor  than  those  of  the  great 
vassals  of  France  to  Hugh  Capet  when  they  elected  him 
their  king.  Our  main  object  in  this  chapter  is  to  try 
and  discover  some  explanation  of  this  extraordinary 
difference;  in  other  words,  to  ascertain  why  the  same 
system  of  government  should  have  produced  such  differ- 
ent results  in  the  two  countries. 

Lewis  the  German  (grandson  of  Charlemagne),  to 
whom,  by  the  treaty  of  Yerdun,  East  Francia — that  is, 
Germany  east  of  the  Rhine — had  been  assigned,  dying 


THE  SIX  GERMAN  TRIBES.  161 


in  876,  was  succeeded  by  his  surviving  son,  Charles  the 
Fat.  He,  proving  himself  utterly  incapable  of  defend- 
ing the  country  against  the  incursions  of  the  Northmen, 
and  therefore  unfit  to  perform  the  essential  duties  of 
King  of  the  Franks  in  those  days  of  violence,  was 
deposed  in  888  by  his  nobles.  He  was  the  last  legiti- 
mate male  descendant  of  Charlemagne ;  and  such  was 
the  superstitious  reverence  at  that  time  for  the  race  of 
which  the  great  Emperor  was  the  founder,  notwith- 
standing the  extraordinary  and  well-proved  incapacity 
of  each  one  of  its  members  save  the  chief,  that  the 
nobles  decided  to  choose  as  their  king,  on  the  death  of 
Charles,  an  illegitimate  descendant  of  the  Emperor, — 
Arnulf, — simply  because  the  blood  of  Charlemagne  ran 
in  his  veins.  Arnulf  proved  not  an  unworthy  scion  of 
his  illustrious  ancestor. 

The  principal  tribes  in  Germany  at  the  time  of  the 
death  of  Arnulf  were  six  in  number,  inhabiting  the  fol- 
lowing districts  :  1st,  Saxony,  the  largest  territory,  and 
the  most  renowned  for  its  warriors,  between  the  Lower 
Rhine  and  the  Oder,  the  North  Sea  and  the  Hartz  Moun- 
tains, including  modern  Hanover,  Westphalia,  Bruns- 
wick, and  Northern  Prussia.  The  Saxons  were  the  last 
barbarians  subdued  by  Charlemagne,  and  they  still  re- 
tained their  fierceness  and  strength.  2d,  Thuringia,  south 
of  the  Saxon  lands,  a  district  not  specially  remarkable  in 
mediaeval  history.  It  formed,  later,  part  of  the  duchy  of 
Saxony.  3d,  Franconia,  or  country  of  the  East  Franks, 

— Central  Germany,  from  the  Middle  Rhine  eastward  to 

14* 


162  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  Elbe,  or  nearly  so.  4th,  Bavaria,  the  central  south- 
ern portion  of  Germany,  extending  to  the  eastern  frontier, 
or  Ostmark,  afterwards  known  as  the  Archduchy  of 
Austria.  5th,  Swabia,  Southern  Germany  and  German 
Switzerland,  from  the  Alps  to  the  Danube  and  beyond. 
6th,  Lorraine,  the  border-land  between  France  and  Ger- 
many, from  the  Alps  to  the  North  Sea.  At  the  head  of 
each  of  the  tribes  occupying  these  districts  was  a  chief, 
called  a  Duke,  who,  during  the  whole  Middle  Age,  was 
the  hereditary  sovereign  of  the  lands  occupied  by  it. 
From  one  or  other  of  these  families  was  chosen  the 
German  king,  or  Emperor  as  he  was  called,  until  the 
end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  the  struggle  between 
these  dukes  and  the  king  whom  they  elected  from  their 
own  number  forms  one  of  the  most  important  chapters 
of  medieval  history  in  Germany. 

But  previous  to  this  rivalry  for  supremacy  among 
these  families  it  was  necessary  that  Germany  should  be 
made  secure  from  invasion.  It  is  satisfactory  to  find 
that  the  real  title  of  those  princely  houses  who  strug- 
gled for  the  headship  or  the  kingship  of  the  country 
in  early  times  was  in  almost  all  cases  the  real  service 
they  had  rendered  in  resisting  the  barbarian  invaders. 
Their  claims  rested  upon  the  public  gratitude  for  such 
services,  and  if  their  rule  was  one  of  force  we  must 
remember  that  its  most  conspicuous  display  was  made 
for  the  public  good.  Resistance  to  invasion  was  the 
great  preoccupation  of  the  time,  and  the  worthiest  was 
he  who  was  not  merely  the  strongest,  but  the  bravest 


HENRY  THE  FOWLER.  163 

in  averting  the  ruin  which  threatened  Germany  from 
these  invasions. 

The  male  posterity  of  Charlemagne  in  Germany  be- 
came extinct  on  the  death  of  the  son  of  Arnulf,  Lewis 
the  Child.  The  nobles  of  the  different  tribes,  anxious, 
after  the  customs  of  the  primitive  Germans,  to  retain  the 
kingship  in  the  family  of  Charlemagne,  elected  Conrad, 
who  was  descended  from  him  in  the  female  line,  as  their 
king.  But  he  proved  unable  to  drive  out  the  barbarians, 
who,  during  his  reign,  penetrated  far  into  Germany,  or 
to  subdue  the  pretensions  to  independence  of  the  powerful 
Duke  of  the  Saxons,  Henry.  On  the  death  of  Conrad, 
who  had  been  mortally  wounded  in  a  battle  against  the 
invaders,  and  at  his  own  suggestion  just  before  his  death, 
the  nobles  chose  as  his  successor,  in  919,  his  rival  and 
enemy,  Henry,  Duke  of  the  Saxons,  known  in  history  as 
Henry  the  Fowler.  The  Saxons,  of  whom  he  was  the 
chief,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  proved  the  most  obsti- 
nate and  powerful  of  all  Charlemagne's  enemies.  They 
were  nominally  subdued  by  him  and  made  Christians,  if 
the  act  of  baptism  forced  upon  them  as  an  alternative  for 
drowning  could  make  them  such.  Since  his  death  their 
strength  (and  they  were  the  most  powerful  of  all  the 
German  tribes)  had  been  used  to  secure  their  own  inde- 
pendence, and  therefore  to  destroy  whatever  German 
unity  existed  under  Charlemagne's  policy.  Their  atti- 
tude changed  when  their  chief  was  chosen  king  by  his 
fellow-chieftains.  Henry  is  said  to  be  the  true  founder 
of  modern  Germany,  and  his  pretensions  are  based  upon 


164  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

this,  that  he  really  first  gave  Germany  to  herself  free 
from  the  perpetual  torrent  of  invasion  which  up  to  his 
time  had  constantly  threatened  to  overwhelm  it.  He 
conquered  the  Wends  to  the  east  of  the  Elbe,  he  defeated 
the  Northern  Slavonic  tribes  on  the  frontiers  of  Saxony, 
and  he  drove  back  the  Hungarians  at  Merseburg  (933) 
with  such  frightful  slaughter  that  they  ceased  thereafter 
to  molest  Germany.  He  did  more,  for  he  filled  the  fron- 
tier country  with  German  colonists,  who  soon  proved  an 
effectual  barrier  against  further  invasion.  These  districts 
were  called  marks,  and  their  governors  margraves,  men 
selected  by  the  king  for  their  approved  valor  and  capacity 
to  guard  and  rule  these  outlying  portions  of  Germany. 
Many  of  these  marks  became  in  the  course  of  time, 
under  the  rule  of  a  succession  of  able  chiefs,  kingdoms 
and  duchies,  with  preponderant  political  influence  in 
Germany.  The  present  house  of  Prussia  is  descended 
from  the  first  ruler  of  the  mark  of  Brandenburg,  and 
that  of  Austria  from  the  chief  of  the  Ostmark  or  Eastern 
mark,  and  of  Styria  or  Steiermark. 

The  German  kings  for  the  first  three  centuries  and  a 
half,  and  until  the  direct  line  in  each  became  extinct, 
were  taken  from  three  great  families  or  dynasties.  These 
kings  of  Germany  or  of  the  Franks  were  chosen  by  the 
great  vassals,  and  did  not  become  such  by  hereditary 
right.  Thus,  the  first  dynasty  was  the  Saxon,  of  which 
I  have  just  spoken,  and  of  which  Henry  the  Fowler 
was  chief.  Its  princes  reigned  from  919  to  1024 ;  the 
second,  that  of  Franconia,  1024-1125 ;  and  the  third, 


FEUDAL  INDEPENDENCE.  165 

that  of  Swabia  or  Hohenstauffen,  1138-1254.  It  is 
impossible,  of  course,  to  give  even  a  sketch  of  the  events 
which  distinguished  these  reigns,  or  even  the  dynasties, 
in  Germany.  There  are  many  illustrious  names  on  the 
roll  of  these  German  kings,  the  Othos,  the  Henrys,  and 
the  Fredericks  of  history,  but  there  is  a  weary  sameness 
in  the  record  of  their  reigns,  which,  so  far  as  Germany  was 
concerned,  were  taken  up  in  perpetual  and  vain  efforts 
made  by  the  kings  to  subdue  the  independent  spirit  of 
the  various  princes  and  to  bring  them  into  subjection  to 
the  central  royal  authority.  We  see  here,  as  I  have  said, 
that  process  of  centralization  and  tendency  to  unity 
which  marked  the  history  of  France  reversed.  The- 
great  vassals  succumbed  at  last  in  that  country  to  the 
king,  and  their  fiefs  were  united  to  the  crown ;  in  Ger- 
many the  feudal  principle  of  separatism  triumphed,  and 
the  fiefs  became  hereditary  with  sovereign  authority 
remaining  in  the  families  of  their  original  possessors. 
The  principal  parties  to  this  struggle  for  more  than  two 
centuries  were  the  houses  of  Saxony  and  those  of  Fran- 
conia,  and  afterwards  of  Hohenstauffen,  and  their  conflict 
gave  rise  to  the  historic  names  of  Welf  and  Weiblingen, 
or,  as  they  were  afterwards  called  in  Italy,  Guelph  and 
Ghibeline,  the  former  representing  in  Germany  oppo- 
sition to  the  kingly,  as  it  did  in  Italy  opposition  to  the 
Imperial  power. 

The  chief  interest  to  the  general  student  in  the  history 
of  many  of  the  illustrious  men  who  were  German  kings 
of  the  first  three  dynasties  is  due  to  their  having  been 


166  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

at  the  same  time  Emperors  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire, 
and  to  their  relations  in  this  double  capacity  with  Italy 
and  the  Pope.  Of  these  we  shall  speak  presently. 
As  German  kings  merely,  these  men  had  little  real 
authority.  They,  or  at  least  the  earliest  among  them, 
had  no  fixed  home,  but  kept  moving  about  from  one 
place  to  another  throughout  Germany,  administering 
justice  among  their  vassals,  and  preparing  for  war  when 
not  actually  engaged  in  it.  They  had  no  settled  revenue 
derived  from  taxation,  and  their  private  domain,  which 
consisted  principally  of  immense  forests,  was  scattered 
throughout  the  Empire.  The  Germans  still  continued 
to  regard  every  public  tax,  as  they  had  done  in  their 
primitive  days,  as  a  badge  of  servitude.  All  services 
were  rendered  in  person  by  their  vassals.  There  was 
no  regular  armed  force  raised  and  maintained  by  the 
king  as  such  :  the  army  consisted  wholly  of  the  feudal 
vassals  and  their  followers,  forming  a  sort  of  cavalry 
militia  with  the  barons  at  its  head.  This  array,  which, 
by  the  conditions  attached  to  the  fiefs,  served  for  a  short 
period  only,  had  been  substituted  for  the  ancient  levy  of 
freemen.  The  knights  (Hitters)  became  not  merely  the 
leaders  in  battle,  but  were  bound  by  the  peculiar  feudal 
ties  to  the  immediate  lord  whom  they  served,  and  thus 
devotion  to  their  liege  lord  became  the  characteristic 
type  of  the  warriors  in  that  age,  instead  of  that  passion 
for  independence  and  freedom  by  which  the  ancient 
Germans  had  become  so  greatly  distinguished.  There 
was  no  longer  any  Mallum  or  Champ  de  Mai,  except, 


RISE   OF  FREE   CITIES.  167 

perhaps,  for  the  election  of  a  king.  All  the  conspic- 
uous marks  of  the  feudal  system,  as  I  have  described 
them  in  France,  existed  in  Germany  also.  The  gloomy 
castle,  and  the  still  gloomier  life  within  it,  the  right  of 
private  war,  the  truce  of  God,  the  ceremonial  of  chiv- 
alry, the  arbitrary  rule,  the  miserable  condition  of  the 
serfs,  and  the  depressed  state  of  the  free  rural  laborers, 
— all  these  were  to  be  found  equally  in  both  countries. 

Cities  seem  to 'have  grown  more  rapidly  in  Germany 
than  they  did  in  France.  Henry  the  Fowler,  with 
true  political  sagacity,  was  the  first,  it  is  said,  to  induce 
the  Saxons  to  dwell  in  towns.  These  rose  round  mili- 
tary stations,  or  under  the  shadow  of  those  great  cathe- 
drals the  building  of  which  lasted  many  years  and 
drew  near  them  necessarily  large  bodies  of  workmen. 
These  cities  were  true  places  of  refuge  to  the  oppressed 
vassals  of  the  neighborhood,  who  fled  to  them  to  escape 
their  master's  arbitrary  cruelty,  and  they  soon  became 
large  communities.  From  germs  like  these  grew  up 
the  famous  cities  of  the  Rhine  country,  Mentz,  Worms, 
Speyer,  Strasburg,  Cologne,  and,  indeed,  most  of  the 
great  cities  in  every  part  of  Germany  conspicuous  in 
mediaeval  history.  These  cities  were  usually  self-gov- 
erned ;  that  is,  they  were  free  from  any  feudal  servitude 
except  to  the  Emperor  as  overlord;  but  the  laboring 
class  in  them  was  much  oppressed  by  the  burghers. 
They  are  known  in  history  as  the  Free  Cities  of  the  Em- 
pire. I  shall  have  something  to  say  in  another  chapter 
concerning  the  trade  and  commerce  of  these  cities  as 


168  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

elements  in  the  progress  of  civilization.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  they  were  the  great  centres  of  what  was 
most  vigorous  in  the  national  life  of  the  mediaeval  era. 
They  were  usually  fortified  as  a  means  of  protection,  and 
the  principal  buildings  which  they  contained  were  the 
churches,  especially  the  cathedrals,  and  the  town  halls. 
The  two  hundred  years  which  succeeded  the  year  1000, 
which  period  had  been  looked  forward  to  as  that  which 
had  been  appointed  by  the  Almighty  for  the  end  of  the 
world  and  for  the  final  judgment,  was  the  era  of  the 
glory  of  the  Gothic  architecture  in  Germany.  Cathe- 
drals were  begun  in  almost  every  considerable  city  whose 
architecture  to  this  day  excites  the  wonder  and  the  ad- 
miration of  the  beholder.  The  history  of  the  Gothic 
architecture  does  not  throw  much  light  upon  the  ques- 
tion how  the  striking  contrast  between  the  qualities 
which  could  produce  these  marvels  of  art  and  the  char- 
acteristic rudeness  of  the  age  is  to  be  accounted  for.  The 
glorious  cathedrals  which  the  traveller  finds  in  all  the 
old  towns  in  Europe,  as  well  as  the  grand  town  halls  in 
the  wealthy  manufacturing  cities  of  the  Netherlands, 
have  well  been  called  books  in  stone,  and  are  among  the 
most  wonderful  monuments  of  the  true  life  of  the  Mid- 
dle Age,  ecclesiastical  and  municipal,  little  as  we  can 
comprehend  the  spirit  which  produced  them. 

These  cities  were  connected  by  those  true  agencies  of 
civilization,  public  roads  and  highways.  These  roads, 
even  in  those  rude  days,  extended  along  the  valley  of 
the  Rhine  from  Basle  to  the  ocean,  and  along  the  course 


TRADE  IN  THE  FREE   CITIES.  169 

of  the  Danube  from  Constantinople  to  Ratisbon,  whence 
other  roads  branched  off  until  they  reached  the  great 
trading  cities  in  Northern  and  Eastern  Germany.  Italy, 
too,  was  connected  with  Germany  by  roads  over  the  va- 
rious passes  of  the  Tyrolean  Alps,  on  which  was  main- 
tained a  constant  traffic  with  the  Italian  cities,  Germany 
receiving  thus  the  coveted  spices,  silks,  and  precious 
stones  of  the  East  in  exchange  for  the  products  of  her 
mines,  forests,  and  fisheries.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at,  then,  that  these  cities  were  the  true  centres  of  civili- 
zation, according  to  our  modern  standard,  in  the  Middle 
Age.  The  warlike  deeds,  the  raids,  and  the  plunder- 
ings  of  the  haughty,  fierce,  and  ignorant  nobles  who 
surrounded  them  have  received,  perhaps,  an  undue 
prominence  in  the  history  of  the  times.  Nothing,  in- 
deed, could  well  be  more  marked  than  the  line  which 
then  divided  the  country  from  the  city,  or  than  the 
contempt  with  which  the  nobles  regarded  the  inhabitants 
of  towns  who  showed  skill  and  gained  money  by  the 
practice  of  the  mechanic  arts.  While  the  citizens  scorned 
their  attempts  to  coerce  the  municipalities,  and  banded 
themselves  together  for  common  protection,  the  nobles 
often  became  mere  plunderers  of  their  merchandise  in 
transit,  and  were  well  called  robber-knights. 

But,  as  I  have  said,  the  position  which  the  German 
kings,  or  kings  of  the  Franks,  held  during  the  Middle 
Age  at  the  head  of  the  monarchs  of  Christendom,  was 
especially  due  to  this,  that,  while  they  were  powerful 

k'ngs,  they  were,  at  the  same  time,  Emperors  of  the 

15 


170  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

Holy  Roman  Empire.  They  were,  in  theory  at  least, 
world-monarchs.  The  title  of  king  during  the  Middle 
Age  had  a  certain  technical  limited  meaning.  It  was 
appropriate  only  as  designating  a  ruler  over  a  definite 
territory  or  country.  That  of  Emperor  was  applied  to 
one  who,  after  the  manner  of  the  ancient  Roman  Em- 
peror, was  the  universal  ruler,  or  master  of  the  world. 
There  were  many  kings,  but  there  could  be  but  one 
Emperor.  So  Charlemagne  was  King  of  the  Franks, 
that  is,  ruler  of  the  dominions  of  that  nation.  As  such 
he  was  a  mighty  potentate,  governing  all  Western 
Europe.  But  when  he  was  crowned  by  the  Pope  (800) 
Emperor,  Imperator  Semper  Augustus,  although  he  did 
not  thereby  gain  a  foot  of  territory,  he  became  the  suc- 
cessor and  representative,  according  to  the  universal 
opinion  of  that  age,  of  the  most  majestic  power  the 
world  had  ever  seen,  that  of  the  Roman  Empire ;  and 
when  the  popular  imagination,  as  well  as  the  gratitude 
of  the  Church,  recognized  him  as  Caesar,  that  one  word 
symbolized  a  man  invested  with  the  highest  earthly 
dignity. 

I  have  already  explained  the  theory  of  Charlemagne's 
relation  to  the  Pope,  and  the  grand  scheme  that  was 
arranged  for  dividing  the  government  of  the  world 
between  them.  The  Emperorship  was  to  have  been 
hereditary  in  his  family,  but  by  the  year  900  his  pos- 
terity, to  whom  the  government  of  Italy  had  been 
assigned  at  Verdun,  was  extinct,  and  those  of  his 
family  in  Germany  who  might  have  been  entitled  to 


THE  EMPEROR    OTHO  I.  171 

claim  the  lofty  position  and  title  of  Roman  Emperor 
•were  too  much  engaged  in  beating  back  the  invaders  of 
their  native  country  to  think  of  embarking  upon  for- 
eign expeditions  in  order  to  obtain  the  Imperial  crown 
and  the  name  of  Ca3sar.  Meantime,  certain  princes  of 
Italy,  in  the  absence  of  the  Germans,  had  the  hardihood 
to  take  possession  of  the  crown  which  had  been  worn  by 
Charlemagne,  and  to  call  themselves  Italian  Emperors. 
These  men  have  been  called  more  properly  "  phantom 
Emperors,"  and  it  is  very  certain  that  they  had  neither 
the  power,  nor  the  lofty  conceptions  of  the  universal 
sway  and  important  functions  attached  to  the  office, 
which  had  led  Charlemagne  to  style  himself  successor 
of  the  Caesars.  Anarchy  and  confusion  then  prevailed 
everywhere  in  Italy, — a  state  of  things  caused  chiefly 
by  the  infamous  character  of  the  Popes  of  the  time, 
who  disgraced  St.  Peter's  seat,  and  by  the  constant 
struggles  among  the  petty  Italian  chieftains  for  power. 

Under  these  circumstances,  the  Pope,  John  XII., 
whose  power  was  threatened  by  one  of  these  Italian 
Emperors,  Berengar,  in  962,  called  upon  Otho,  King 
of  the  Franks,  the  second  King  of  Germany  in  the 
Saxon  line,  as  his  predecessors  had  called  upon  Pepin 
and  Charlemagne,  to  rescue  him  from  those  Italian 
princes  who  defied  his  authority,  and  to  resume  that 
position  in  relation  to  the  Holy  See  which  Charlemagne 
had  once  occupied,  and  which  it  was  said  it  had  been 
his  intention  that  the  King  of  the  Franks,  as  the  fore- 
most of  the  people  of  Christendom,  should  always 


172  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

occupy.  Accordingly,  Otho  descended  into  Italy  with 
a  large  force,  reconquered  the  country,  and  was  crowned 
by  the  Pope,  in  962,  as  Charlemagne  had  been,  master 
and  Emperor  of  the  whole  world,  or  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  for  at  that  time  both  terms  had  the  same 
meaning.  Thus  there  was  a  renewal  of  the  strange 
alliance  between  Germany  and  Italy.  How  far  this 
revival  involved  the  obligations  which  had  been  under- 
taken by  Charlemagne  and  Leo  it  is  not  easy  to  decide, 
but  it  is  certain  that  the  new  arrangement,  like  the  old, 
was  big  with  consequences  not  merely  to  Germany  and 
to  Italy,  but  to  the  future  of  the  whole  of  Europe. 
The  German  kings  as  Roman  Emperors  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  show  their  interpretation  of  the  power  conferred, 
by  deposing  one  Pope  after  another.  The  plan  did 
not  work  at  all  smoothly  nor  as  the  parties  to  it  could 
have  anticipated.  History  shows  us  each  party  striving 
to  gain  the  advantage  of  the  other  in  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  terms  of  the  bargain ;  and,  whatever  else 
may  have  grown  out  of  it,  discordant  views  concerning 
its  meaning  gave  rise,  among  other  things,  no  doubt,  to 
the  famous  dispute  about  the  "  Investitures,"  to  the  sub- 
sequent downfall  of  the  Imperial  power  in  Italy,  and 
to  the  irreparable  injury  of  Germany,  not  merely  by 
rendering  impracticable  the  relations  into  which  the 
scheme  brought  its  rulers  in  the  Church  and  in  the 
State,  but  also  by  employing  the  activity,  energy,  and 
resources  of  Germany  in  controlling  foreign  Italian  poli- 
tics instead  of  directing  them  to  advance  home  interests. 


THE  EMPEROR'S  WEAKNESS  IN  ROME.   173 

As  I  have  said,  Otho  the  Great  regarded  Italy  as 
a  conquered  territory,  and  made  its  princes  and  cities 
feudal  vassals ;  but  in  regard  to  the  papacy  he  appears 
as  a  reformer,  striving  to  place  persons  of  at  least  decent 
life  and  habits  in  St.  Peter's  chair.  Although  he  had 
been  sent  for  by  the  Pope  to  aid  him  in  maintaining  his 
pretensions,  he  was  so  shocked  by  the  bad  character  and 
morals  of  those  high  in  office  in  the  Church,  and  the 
general  corruption  which  prevailed  at  Rome  under  the 
papal  authority,  that,  with  the  aid  of  a  synod  of  ec- 
clesiastics which  he  convened,  he  deposed  the  reigning 
Pope,  and  put  in  his  place  his  own  secretary,  a  lay- 
man named  Leo.  It  is  a  curious  fact,  however,  that  the 
Romans  themselves,  although  often  ruled  by  bad  Popes, 
had  so  fierce  a  jealousy  of  the  interference  of  foreigners 
in  their  affairs  that  on  the  many  occasions  upon  which 
the  Emperors  were  forced  to  occupy  Rome  during  the 
Middle  Ages  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  order  by  de- 
posing the  Popes,  no  sooner  had  the  work  been  done 
and  the  Emperor  had  left  the  city  with  his  army,  than 
the  populace  broke  out  in  rebellion  against  the  rule  he 
established  and  restored  that  of  the  Pope.  Nothing  is 
clearer  in  mediaeval  history  than  that  the  place  where 
the  great  Emperor  of  the  world  always  had  least  power 
and  influence  was  in  his  own  capital,  the  city  of  Rome. 

Still,  the  power  to  which  that  illustrious  city  gave  the 
name  and  the  prestige,  shadowy  as  it  was,  retained  for 
ages  a  strange  fascination  for  these  children  of  the 

North.     Otho's  grandson,  third  Emperor  of  the  name, 

15* 


174  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY 

was  not  a  mere  rude  and  strong  warrior,  a  typical  chief 
of  the  Franks.  He  was  a  dreamer  of  great  dreams, 
as  Charlemagne  had  been,  but  he  lacked  the  force,  the 
vigor,  and  the  practical  sagacity  of  that  great  man,  by 
which  his  dreams  might  become  realities.  But  his  con- 
ception of  his  relations  to  the  Church  and  his  duties  as 
Emperor  were  even  more  lofty.  Nothing  less  would 
satisfy  his  imagination  than  a  scheme  for  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  kingship  of  Germany  and  a  substitution  of 
the  Emperorship  of  the  world  for  it,  thus  identifying 
himself  wholly  with  the  Roman  Csasars  by  transferring 
the  seat  of  empire  to  the  city  of  Rome,  and  governing 
Germany  and  the  far-distant  East,  as  the  Ca3sars  had 
done,  as  provinces.  Fortunately  for  Germany  at  least, 
the  proper  government  of  which  he  would  have  aban- 
doned had  this  scheme  been  carried  out,  he  died  at  an 
early  age.  He  lived  long  enough,  however,  to  continue 
the  reforming  work  of  the  German  Emperors  at  Rome 
by  nominating  two  Popes,  both  Germans, — one  his 
cousin,  and  the  other  his  preceptor  (the  celebrated  Ger- 
bert,  afterwards  Sylvester  II.), — in  place  of  the  profli- 
gate Italian  priests  who  aspired  to  the  papacy.  It  is  to 
be  observed  that  the  opinion  of  Charlemagne  that  it  was 
the  duty  of  the  world's  Emperor  so  to  use  his  power 
that  the  Pope,  as  God's  vicegerent  on  earth,  should  be 
at  least  free  from  vices  which  were  inconsistent  with  his 
lofty  pretensions,  and  that  his  life  should  be  such  as  not 
to  be  a  matter  of  scandal  to  Christian  people, — this 
duty,  in  an  age  of  horrible  corruption,  iniquity,  and 


REFORMS   WITHIN  THE   CHURCH.         175 

barbarism,  was  not  neglected  by  Charlemagne's  succes- 
sors. It  really  seems  that  without  some  such  powerful 
champions  for  the  right  as  these  Emperors  proved  them- 
selves to  be,  the  papacy  in  those  days  of  darkness  must 
have  perished  from  its  own  rottenness. 

This  reforming  tendency  is  to  be  found  not  merely 
in  the  Emperors  of  the  Saxon  dynasty,  but  in  those  of 
the  Franconian  and  Swabian  line  also.  Henry  III. 
deposed,  without  hesitation,  three  rival  Popes,  each  of 
whom  claimed  to  be  the  rightful  one,  and  appointed 
their  successors.  All  the  kings  of  Germany  of  these 
dynasties  made  it  almost  the  first  business  of  their 
reigns  to  go  to  Italy  to  secure  their  possessions,  to  assert 
the  authority  in  Church  affairs  which  they  claimed  to 
have  derived  from  Charlemagne,  and  to  be  crowned 
Emperor  by  the  Pope  at  Rome.  These  Italian  expe- 
ditions after  a  while  produced  abundant  fruit,  but  not 
such  as  the  Emperors  had  anticipated.  The  High 
Churchmen,  if  they  may  be  so  called,  with  the  Popes 
at  their  head,  began  at  last  to  learn  the  lessons  taught 
by  the  German  Emperors;  but  they  felt  that  reform 
should  begin  within  the  Church  and  be  carried  out  by 
its  own  authority,  and  not  by  that  of  laymen,  not  even 
the  Emperor  himself.  In  other  words,  what  was  needed, 
in  their  opinion,  was  discipline  over  the  clergy,  exer- 
cised only  by  the  authority  of  the  Church  itself. 

At  that  time  the  crying  abuses  in  the  Church  were 
simony,  or  the  sale  of  ecclesiastical  preferments  for 
money,  and  a  married  clergy.  The  one  placed  the 


176  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

priests,  it  was  supposed,  too  much  in  the  power  of 
wealthy  and  unscrupulous  noblemen  who  shared  with 
them  the  revenues  of  the  Church  lands,  and  the  other 
withdrew  them  too  much  from  their  proper  priestly 
duties,  besides  conflicting  with  the  Church's  ideal  notion 
of  priestly  purity.  In  short,  it  was  felt  that  the  lay 
power,  from  the  Emperor  down  to  the  proprietor  of  the 
smallest  benefice,  had  too  much  control  in  the  admin- 
istration of  Church  affairs;  and  the  device  which  was 
resorted  to  to  get  rid  of  this  lay  interference,  even  when 
put  forth  as  a  remedy  for  admitted  evils,  was  one  of  the 
grandest  and  most  audacious  recorded  in  history,  and 
was  devised  by  the  boldest  and  most  remarkable  man 
of  the  many  remarkable  men  in  the  long  roll  of  the 
Popes, — Hildebrand,  Gregory  VII. 

The  dispute  which  brought  into  striking  prominence 
the  pretensions  upon  which  this  theory  of  the  relation  of 
the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  power  was  founded  is  called 
that  of  the  Investitures;  and  it  arose  in  this  way.  Greg- 
ory VII.,  fully  convinced  that  the  greatest  evil  of  the 
Church  in  his  time  was  its  thorough  secularization,  on 
his  accession  in  1075  issued  a  decree  providing  that 
hereafter  no  bishop  should  receive  his  office  or  be  in- 
vested with  the  temporalities  belonging  to  it  from  any 
layman  under  conditions  of  service  to  such  layman, 
and  that  no  payment  of  money  should  be  made  for  ob- 
taining such  an  office,  under  the  penalties  of  simony. 
In  Germany,  Henry  IV.,  of  the  Franconian  dynasty, 
was  then  king,  and  the  result  of  the  decree,  if  enforced, 


HENRY  IV.  AND  HILDEBRAND.  177 

would  have  betn  to  deprive  him  of  a  large  revenue,  for 
the  clergy  of  all  degrees  held  their  estates  by  feudal  in- 
vestiture from  him  and  occupied  nearly  half  of  the  ter- 
ritory of  his  kingdom.  As  long  as  the  king  appointed 
the  bishops,  he  in  a  great  measure  dictated  the  ecclesi- 
astical policy  of  his  nominees,  and  of  course,  as  donor 
of  their  lands  and  their  incomes,  controlled  them. 
Henry  refused  to  obey  the  decree  of  Gregory  VII.,  and 
convened  a  syfcod  in  Germany  which  deposed  the  Pope. 
The  Pope  replied  by  excommunicating  Henry,  who  was 
the  first  German  sovereign  whom  the  Popes  had  dared 
to  attack  in  this  way  (1076).  This  excommunication 
legally  (by  canon  law)  released  his  subjects  from  their 
obedience,  and  the  result  was,  under  the  influence  of  the 
Saxon  nobles,  who  had  always  been  jealous  because  the 
Emperor  had  been  taken  from  the  rival  Franconian 
house  instead  of  their  own,  that  a  general  defection  of 
his  subjects  became  imminent.  The  king — or  Emperor, 
rather,  for  he  had  been  crowned  Emperor  by  the  Pope 
— found  that  he  was  overmastered  by  the  Church,  and 
intimated  that  his  desire  was  to  submit  to  the  Pope  and 
receive  absolution.  It  ended,  as  is  well  known,  in  the 
extraordinary  spectacle  of  the  world's  titular  master  pre- 
senting himself  (1077),  clad  as  a  penitent,  at  the  gate 
of  the  castle  of  Canossa,  in  the  Apennines,  waiting  for 
four  days  and  nights  exposed  to  a  snow-storm,  until  j 
the  haughty  Pontiff  thought  the  Emperor  sufficiently 
humbled  to  be  received  by  him  and  upon  his  complete 
submission  to  be  readmitted  to  the  bosom  of  the  Church 


178  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

by  absolution.  This  picture  of  the  utter  prostration  of 
the  lay  power  at  the  feet  of  the  ecclesiastical  is  one  of  the 
most  striking  in  history ;  but  it  is  hardly  more  extraor- 
dinary than  the  reasons  which  are  given  to  explain  and 
justify  it.  Henry's  submission,  as  the  event  proved, 
was  feigned ;  but  the  Church  never  forgot  the  lesson  of 
the  vastness  of  its  power  taught  by  this  humiliating 
scene.  Gregory's  claim  was  not  novel,  and  it  has  never 
been  abandoned ;  but  it  had  never  been  enforced  by  the 
Church  in  such  a  manner  as  this.  It  was  nothing  less 
than  a  claim  not  only  that  the  spiritual  power  was  the 
first  and  highest  and  controlling  element  in  human  so- 
ciety, but  that  it  included  the  right  to  command  the 
temporal,  and,  in  case  of  need,  to  compel  its  obedience. 
While  Gregory's  vigor  undoubtedly  reformed  much 
that  was  evil  in  the  Church,  his  lofty  pretensions,  based 
on  the  theocratic  principle,  set  an  example  to  the  Inno- 
cents and  the  Bonifaces  of  later  days  for  using  that 
power  for  far  less  worthy  purposes,  while  the  claim  and 
its  enforcement  roused  an  intensely  anti-papal  feeling 
in  Germany,  especially  in  the  cities,  which  grew  in 
strength  and  bitterness  until  the  time  of  the  Reforma- 
tion. Hence  this  quarrel  about  the  Investitures  has  an 
important  bearing  upon  the  course  of  German  history. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  other  great  quarrel 
between  Germany  and  Italy  during  the  Middle  Age, — 
that  of  Frederick  Barbarossa  and  his  grandson,  Frederick 
II.,  with  the  Italian  cities,  concerning  their  claim  to  be 
freed  from  feudal  servitude  to  the  German  Emperors, — 


THE  EMPEROR  AND  THE  LOMBARD  LEAGUE.  179 

a  dispute  which  was  complicated  by  the  interference  of 
the  Pope  on  behalf  of  the  cities.  The  German  Emperors 
had,  as  I  have  explained,  conquered  Italy  over  and  over 
again  since  the  days  of  Charlemagne.  Both  the  princes 
and  the  cities  were,  according  to  the  strictest  interpreta- 
tion of  the  law  then  universally  prevailing,  the  feuda- 
tories of  the  Emperor,  and  as  such  were  bound  to  render 
him  the  customary  feudal  services.  As  the  cities  in 
Italy,  and  especially  in  Lombardy,  grew  richer  and  more 
powerful,  and  the  Emperors  of  the  house  of  Franconia 
less  able,  owing  to  their  troubles  with  their  vassals 
in  Germany,  to  maintain  their  feudal  rights  in  Italy, 
there  grew  up,  particularly  in  Milan,  a  determined  spirit 
of  resistance  to  these  claims  of  the  Emperor.  When 
the  family  of  Swabia  or  Hohenstauffen  succeeded  that  of 
Franconia,  Frederick  Barbarossa  determined  to  coerce 
these  cities  into  obedience,  and  in  1154  he  crossed  the 
Alps  with  a  large  army  and  was  crowned  King  of  Lom- 
bardy at  Pavia.  Frederick  seems  to  have  been  a  sort  of 
Imperial  Hildebrand,  and  with  as  high  an  idea  of  the 
soundness  of  his  title  to  be  the  world-monarch  as  that 
haughty  Pontiff  had  of  his  own  to  supreme  rule.  This 
temper  guided  him  both  in  his  dealings  with  the  Pope 
and  with  the  rebellious  cities  of  Lombardy.  He  in- 
sisted that  "the  Imperial  crown  was  independent,  and 
he  ascribed  his  possession  of  it  to  the  Divine  goodness 
only." 

With  these  notions  of  his  prerogative,  he  proceeded  to 
show  how  much  he  was  in  earnest  in  his  intention  of 


180  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

exercising  it,  not  only  by  attacking  Milan,  which  had  re- 
fused to  recognize  his  feudal  sovereignty  and  render  the 
tribute  due,  but,  after  gaining  possession  of  the  city,  by 
utterly  destroying  it,  levelling  its  buildings  to  the  ground, 
and  giving  the  inhabitants  only  eight  days  to  remove 
from  its  territory.  The  cities  of  Lombardy  were  for  a 
time  stunned  by  this  terrible  blow,  but  they  soon  recov- 
ered, and,  on  some  reverses  of  the  Emperor  occurring, 
formed  a  league  to  oppose  him,  called  the  Lombard 
League,  to  which  nearly  all  the  great  cities  of  North- 
ern Italy  adhered,  and  set  about  rebuilding  Milan 
and  defying  the  Emperor.  In  this  they  were  aided  by 
the  Pope,  Alexander  III.,  and  a  memorable  and  decisive 
battle  was  fought  between  this  league  of  Lombard  cities 
and  the  Emperor  at  Legnano  in  1176,  in  which  the 
Emperor  was  completely  defeated.  This  battle  I  call 
memorable,  for  it  is  the  first  instance  in  the  history  of 
the  Middle  Age  in  which  municipalities  joined  together 
in  successful  resistance  to  one  of  the  great  sovereigns  of 
Europe ;  and  it  was  decisive  not  merely  because  the  result 
was,  after  some  years,  the  permanent  establishment  of  the 
municipal  freedom  of  these  great  towns,  but  also  because 
it  was  the  principal  cause  of  the  end  of  that  German 
domination  in  Italy  which  had  continued,  practically 
unbroken,  from  the  time  of  Charlemagne.  The  Hohen- 
stauffens  became  extinct  on  the  death  of  the  brilliant 
Frederick  II.,  grandson  of  Barbarossa,  and  his  sou, 
whose  heroic  deeds  are  more  particularly  connected  with 
the  history  of  Italy  than  with  that  of  Germany.  After 


RUDOLPH  OF  HAPSBURG.  181 

their  death  the  German  Emperors  ceased  any  more  to  vex 
that  country  on  the  plea  that  they  were  the  successors  of 
Charlemagne,  and,  as  such,  world-monarch s.  How  far 
the  unity  and  progress  of  Germany  were  retarded  by 
the  efforts  of  its  rulers  for  nearly  five  centuries  to  secure 
the  possession  of  Italy,  and  by  their  expending  the  re- 
sources of  Germany  on  that  object,  it  is  not  easy  to  say. 
The  policy  which  persistently  wasted  so  much  and  gained 
so  little  seems  to  most  modern  historians  a  fatal  one. 

The  confusion  and  anarchy  in  Germany  on  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  house  of  Hohenstauffen  were  so  great  that 
a  considerable  period  elapsed,  called  the  Interregnum 
(1254-1272),  before  the  nobles  in  that  countiy  could 
find  any  one  with  serious  qualifications  for  the  office  of 
Emperor.  After  the  reigns  of  several  Emperors  of  the 
Houses  of  Luxemburg  and  Bavaria,  they  chose  for  that 
office  Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  who  did  not  belong  to  any 
one  of  the  ruling  families  of  the  ancient  tribes.  He 
held  extensive  fiefs  in  Swabia,  Switzerland,  and  Alsace, 
and  by  choosing  him  Germany  was  spared  at  least  from 
those  wars  of  rival  families  which  had  brought  so  much 
misery  upon  the  land.  The  first  need  of  the  time  was 
the  restoration  of  public  order ;  and  Rudolph  was  chosen 
with  the  hope  of  attaining  that  object.  How  much  it 
was  needed  is  shown  by  the  story  that  he  earned,  when 
a  private  nobleman,  the  gratitude  and  confidence  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Mentz  by  escorting  him  in  safety  through 
Southern  Germany  and  the  passes  of  Switzerland  on  a 

journey  to  Rome,  whither  he  was  forced  to  go  to  receive 

16 


182  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

from  the  Pope  the  pallium,  the  proper  symbolical  inves- 
titure of  his  see.  As  the  Archbishop  was  one  of  the 
Electors  of  the  Emperor,  his  influence  in  securing  the 
election  of  Rudolph  was  all-powerful,  and  proved  suc- 
cessful ;  but  what  a  strange  picture  of  the  lawless  state 
of  society  is  that  of  the  Primate  of  Germany  unable 
to  go  to  Home  to  secure  his  office  without  the  constant 
protection  of  a  powerful  noble,  whose  fidelity  to  his 
promise  seemed  as  much  a  cause  of  wonder  as  of 
gratitude ! 

Rudolph  made  no  attempt,  as  his  predecessors  had 
done,  to  reduce  his  great  vassals  in  Germany  to  feudal 
obedience.  Their  fiefs  had  long  been  hereditary,  and 
their  chiefs  were  practically  sovereign,  with  a  mere 
nominal  dependence  upon  the  Emperor;  and  he  was 
content  so  to  leave  them.  His  object  was  to  restore 
order :  in  doing  so  he  determined  that  the  law  of  brute 
force  should  cease  throughout  Germany.  He  subdued 
the  robber-knights,  who  in  those  evil  times  did  not 
hesitate  to  plunder  peaceful  traders ;  and  with  the  same 
object  in  view  he  placed  the  powerful  King  of  Bohemia 
under  the  ban  of  the  Empire,  defeated  him  in  a  great 
battle,  1276,  and,  with  the  consent  of  the  nobles,  took 
possession  of  the  districts  of  Austria,  Styria,  Carinthia, 
and  Carniola,  and  erected  them  into  an  Imperial  fief, 
which  he  gave  to  his  sons,  and  thus  founded  the  terri- 
torial dominion  of  his  descendants,  the  reigning  house 
of  Austria,  in  the  present  Archduchy  and  its  depend- 
encies. The  Imperial  name  and  authority  seem  to  have 


THE  ELECTORS  OF  THE  EMPEROR.       183 

lost  all  their  early  prestige  in  this  family,  presenting  no 
longer  to  men's  minds  a  grand  conception  of  universal 
monarchy  having  for  its  ideal  object  the  securing  of 
universal  right  and  justice,  but  becoming,  after  the  loss 
of  Italy,  not  even  a  means  of  making  Germany  strong 
and  united,  and  serving  as  a  powerful  instrument  of 
aggrandizing  the  dynastic  interests  of  that  Hapsburg 
family  from  which  the  Emperors  for  nearly  five  centu- 
ries were  taken.  '  The  title  of  Roman  Emperor  and  the 
ceremonial  of  the  Imperial  court  were  kept  up  until 
both  were  swept  away  by  the  battle  of  Austerlitz  in 
1806 ;  but  it  was  all  an  empty  show  :  the  true  Empire 
had  fallen,  to  rise  no  more,  and  it  is  hard  to  discover  any 
resemblance  between  Charlemagne,  whose  Empire  was 
only  another  name  for  the  conquest  of  civilization,  and 
the  descendants  of  Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  who  became 
powerful  by  selling  the  Imperial  rights  and  jurisdic- 
tions to  their  subjects  and  by  intermarriage  with  the 
richest  and  most  powerful  families  of  Europe. 

The  Electors  of  the  Emperor,  constituted  such  by  the 
Golden  Bull  of  Charles  IV.  (1356),  were  seven  men  of 
the  highest  dignity  in  the  Empire,  who  were  supposed  to 
represent  the  Church  and  the  principal  ancient  tribes  of 
Germany, — the  Archbishops  of  Mentz,  of  Cologne,  and 
of  Treves  for  the  former,  and  the  King  of  Bohemia, 
the  Duke  of  Saxony,  the  Margrave  of  Brandenburg,  and 
the  Count  Palatine  of  the  Rhine  for  the  latter.  The 
lay  representation  in  the  Electoral  College  was  some- 
what changed  as  time  went  on,  but,  as  has  been  said,  a 


184  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

member  of  the  house  of  Hapsburg  was  always  its  choice 
for  Emperor.  The  Imperial  office  in  this  family  ceased 
to  be,  as  Voltaire  says,  either  Holy,  or  Homan,  or  Apos- 
tolic. He  who  held  it  had  neither  power  nor  possessions 
as  Emperor,  although  as  Archduke  of  Austria  he  held 
extensive  territories  in  Germany;  and  the  result  was  that 
the  history  of  that  country  under  the  Hapsburgs,  down 
to  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  presents  a  condition  of 
disorganization  and  anarchy  in  which  public  order  and 
security  were  hardly  more  firmly  settled  than  in  the 
wildest  license  of  feudal  times. 

The  old  law  of  force  seemed  again  the  only  law.  The 
fourteenth  century,  when  this  misrule  was  at  its  height, 
is  the  epoch  of  insurrections  against  arbitrary  tyranny 
in  Germany.  The  revolt  of  the  Svvabian  towns,  and  the 
heroic  and  successful  resistance  of  the  Swiss,  whose 
country  then  formed  part  of  Germany,  to  the  power  of 
the  house  of  Austria,  as  exhibited  on  the  battle-fields 
of  Morgarten  and  Sempach,  were  the  first  rays  of  light 
shining  in  a  dark  place.  In  Switzerland — and  it  is  a 
significant  fact — the  contest  was  not  merely  for  the  free- 
dom of  the  towns  from  feudal  servitude,  but  for  the 
independence  of  the  country ;  and  they  secured  it. 
During  all  this  time  there  was  in  Germany  none  of  that 
gradual  unfolding  and  development  of  national  life 
tending  towards  national  unity  observable  in  the  his- 
tory of  other  important  countries  of  Europe  towards 
the  close  of  the  Middle  Age,  and  no  mitigation  of  the 
hardships  of  the  feudal  system  which  bore  so  severely 


THE   COUNCIL    OF  CONSTANCE.  185 

on  the  rural  laborers,  whether  serfs  or  villeins.  In  the 
towns,  it  is  true,  the  condition  was  somewhat  better;  for 
the  inhabitants,  especially  of  the  free  cities,  were  in  a 
measure  able  to  take  care  of  themselves. 

History  may  be  searched  in  vain  for  a  better  illustra- 
tion of  unrelieved  selfishness  on  the  part  of  the  rulers 
than  that  observable  in  the  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  in  Germany  preceding  the  Reformation.  There 
seemed  to  be  but  one  subject  upon  which  all,  Emperor 
and  vassal,  were  agreed,  and  that  was  a  detestation  of 
the  pretensions  of  the  Pope  to  interfere  with  the  civil 
power  in  Germany,  to  which,  perhaps,  may  be  added  a 
desire  on  all  hands  to  weaken  even  the  supreme  ecclesias- 
tical authority  hitherto  conceded  to  him.  The  Council 
of  Constance,  held  in  1414  and  presided  over  by  the 
Emperor,  was  the  last  occasion  on  which  Latin  Christen- 
dom acted  as  one  commonwealth  under  a  recognized  chief, 
and  was  called  in  order  to  settle  the  claims  of  rivals 
to  the  papacy  and  to  reform  the  crying  abuses  of  the 
Church.  Although  it  declared,  delegates  from  all  the 
Christian  countries  being  present,  that  the  decision  of  a 
General  Council  was  of  superior  authority  to  that  of  the 
Pope,  yet  it  maintained  its  orthodoxy,  nevertheless,  by 
condemning  to  death  John  Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague 
as  heretics,  and  encouraged  the  Emperor,  as  the  armed 
champion  of  the  orthodox  faith,  to  attack  Bohemia,  their 
country,  with  a  large  army,  and  to  exterminate  their 
followers.  This  was  a  task,  it  may  be  said,  in  which  the 
German  princes  joined  with  the  Emperor  in  undertaking 

16* 


186  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

with  much  greater  alacrity  than  they  did  in  that  of 
resisting  the  advance  of  the  Ottoman  Turks,  who  in 
1456  marched  towards  Germany  up  the  valley  of  the 
Danube,  and  who  were  driven  back  not  by  Germans  with 
their  Emperor  at  their  head,  but  by  the  valor  and  con- 
duct of  a  monk  and  of  an  Hungarian  nobleman. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  speak  of  the  ecclesiastical  abuses 
prevalent  in  Germany,  from  which  the  population  suf- 
fered quite  as  much,  but  in  a  different  way,  as  from  the 
misrule  and  disorganization  of  the  civil  power.  The 
special  iniquities  for  which  the  Church  was  held  respon- 
sible, whether  justly  or  not,  contributed  with  the  fright- 
ful tyranny  and  exactions  of  the  feudal  lords  to  produce 
a  general  condition  of  discontent,  which  rapidly  grew 
into  an  intense  craving  for  change,  and  every  favorable 
opportunity  for  revolt  was  embraced,  as  was  seen  genera- 
tions afterwards  in  the  eagerness  with  which  the  anti- 
papal  doctrines  of  the  Reformation  were  adopted,  and  in 
the  violent  outbreak  contemporaneous  with  it  known  as 
the  Peasants'  War.  The  rapid  revolutionary  character 
of  this  movement  in  Germany  was  unlike  that  produced 
by  the  spirit  of  change  elsewhere.  The  reason  is  not  far 
to  seek.  The  great  forces  which  sooner  or  later  in  each 
country  brought  about  that  great  change,  called  the 
Renaissance,  which  marks  their  transition  from  mediaeval 
to  modern  history,  such  as  the  invention  of  printing  and 
of  gunpowder,  the  discovery  of  America,  and  the  revival 
of  the  study  of  the  Greek  literature,  were  met  by  ob- 
stacles very  different  and  much  more  formidable  in  the 


RESULTS   OF  DECENTRALIZATION.        187 

condition  of  German  society  than  those  which  they  en- 
countered in  other  parts  of  Europe.  At  that  time  France, 
under  Louis  XI.,  had  at  last  become  a  nation  in  reality, 
as  well  as  in  name,  by  the  annexation  of  all  the  great 
fiefs  to  the  crown.  In  England  the  Wars  of  the  Roses 
were  ended,  forever  destroying  the  overgrown  power  of 
the  great  nobles,  and  rendering  the  Tudors  the  most 
absolute  of  English  sovereigns.  Even  in  Spain  a  great 
nation  had  been  created  by  the  union  of  the  crowns  of 
Castile  and  of  Aragon.  But  in  Germany  the  feudal  sys- 
tem, the  type  of  an  unprogressive  state,  still  survived, 
and  there  was  no  power  which  could  so  mould  the  results 
of  the  recent  triumphs  of  mind  over  matter  as  to 
strengthen  and  develop  the  true  national  life.  Whatever 
Germans  may  have  done  in  the  work  of  the  world  as  a 
race  from  the  time  of  Rudolph  of  Hapsburg  to  that  of 
the  French  Revolution  was  done  in  spite  of  their  gov- 
ernments, while  local  separatism  and  rival  jealousies 
between  different  parts  of  the  Fatherland  have  been  the 
main  causes  of  its  weakness. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

SAXON   AND   DANISH    ENGLAND. 

THE  early  history  of  England  has,  for  many  reasons, 
special  interest  for  the  American  student.  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  the  history  of  an  important  period  in  the  life 
of  our  own  race.  Whatever  relates  to  the  origin  of  a 
life  so  distinct  and  peculiar,  the  growth  of  which  has 
resulted  in  building  up  a  national  type  wholly  unlike 
any  other  in  history,  concerns  us  as  much  to  know  as  if 
we  were  modern  Englishmen.  Besides,  we  must  pos- 
sess some  knowledge  of  early  English  history  in  order 
that  we  may  understand  the  full  meaning  and  historical 
growth  of  our  own  national  life  as  a  people  of  English 
blood  and  speaking  the  English  language. 

Of  all  the  progressive  civilizations  of  the  world,  that 
of  the  English  race  is  essentially  an  historical  civiliza- 
tion,— that  is,  one  in  which  every  change  is  the  out- 
growth of  a  previous  condition.  The  proudest  boast  of 
an  Englishman  is,  that  his  claim  to  certain  fundamental 
personal  rights  rests  upon  the  ancient  and  undoubted 
right  and  privilege  of  the  people  of  the  realm,  and 
especially  that  his  title  to  the  enjoyment  of  these  rights 
is  derived  from  prescription  and  immemorial  usage,  the 
date  of  their  origin  being  expressed  by  the  legal  phrase, 

"  a  period  during  which  the  memory  of  man  runneth 

188 


HISTORICAL   BASIS   OF  ENGLISH  LIFE.   189 

not  to  the  contrary."  On  the  Continent,  especially 
during  the  last  hundred  years,  the  old  age  of  an  existing 
political  institution  has  been  regarded  as  a  defect  rather 
than  as  a  merit;  its  historical  life  has  been  sacrificed 
without  hesitation  if  it  did  not  fulfil  the  conditions  of 
improvement  formulated  by  some  newly-announced  phi- 
losophical theory  supposed  to  be  of  universal  applica- 
tion. The  English,  on  the  contrary,  in  spite  of  the 
temptation  held  out  to  induce  them  to  adopt  these 
general  political  truths  for  the  practical  uses  of  govern- 
ment simply  because  they  were  true,  and  in  spite  of  the 
example  of  the  nations  on  the  Continent,  have  clung  ob- 
stinately to  their  old  ways,  simply,  it  would  seem  very 
often,  because  they  were  old.  This  has  been  due  not 
merely  to  a  greater  caution  on  the  part  of  Englishmen 
in  making  changes  for  fear  of  evil  results,  but  also  to 
the  English  mind  having  been  so  constituted  and  trained 
that  in  politics,  at  least,  there  has  always  been  an  inborn 
belief,  which  has  grown  with  the  growth  of  the  race, 
that  everything  worth  preserving  in  their  system  has  an 
historical  basis.  It  believes  that  permanent  political 
institutions  are  not  made,  but  grow,  and  that  while  as 
time  goes  on,  and  the  condition  of  the  world  changes, 
some  modifications  of  the  superstructure  may  be  per- 
mitted, yet  the  foundations  must  always  be  embedded  in 
the  historical  life  of  the  nation. 

The  English  Constitution,  of  which  we  hear  so  much, 
is  merely  a  collection  of  historical  precedents,  and  for  that 
reason  it  is  held  in  highest  reverence ;  and  the  common 


190  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

law,  which  is  only  another  name  for  immemorial  usage, 
strange  to  say,  is  called  in  England  the  perfection  of 
human  reason.  In  a  very  important  sense,  then,  Eng- 
lishmen are  almost  fanatics  concerning  the  value  of  the 
lessons  taught  by  their  own  history  as  guides  for  their 
present  action :  whatever  growth  or  evolution  there  may 
be  in  their  system  must  proceed  on  its  own  lines,  and 
not  be  the  result  of  forces  which  have  been  strangers  to 
their  national  life.  Their  ideal  is  strength,  not  con- 
gruity  or  harmony  in  accordance  with  general  political 
theories.  Their  Gothic  structure,  in  their  own  estima- 
tion, even  if  it  lacks  some  modern  conveniences,  serves 
to  shelter  them,  and  they  proudly  point  to  its  strength 
and  durability  as  its  chief  merit,  unwilling  to  run  the 
risk  of  change  merely  to  make  its  rugged  exterior  con- 
form to  the  laws  of  harmony,  symmetry,  and  propor- 
tion, as  understood  elsewhere. 

In  this  country  there  is  not  much  danger  of  our 
adopting  conservative  or  cast-iron  ideas  in  regard  to 
the  movement  of  life  around  us,  and  maintaining  them, 
according  to  the  English  practice,  simply  because  they 
are  old  and  are  supposed,  therefore,  to  be  well  tried. 
Our  fault  is  perhaps  the  opposite  one,  that  we  give  all 
new  ideas  a  too  easy  and  generous  hospitality,  and  that 
we  are  only  too  ready  to  try  experiments.  But  we  can 
no  more  get  rid  of  English  precedents,  upon  which  our 
system,  equally  with  theirs,  is  based,  or  the  habits  which 
they  have  fostered,  than  we  can  get  rid  of  our  English 
speech  or  of  our  English  blood.  It  would  be  very 


AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  LIFE.  191 

undesirable  if  we  could  do  so,  for,  whatever  we  may 
owe  to  other  influences,  that  which  is  most  characteristic 
of  us,  that  which  has  formed  the  element  of  tough- 
ness and  strength  which  has  made  us  triumph  where 
weaker  nations  have  fallen,  is  unmistakably  a  political 
education  due  to  English  origin  and  English  growth. 
These  are  some  of  the  reasons  which  should  induce 
Americans  to  study  English  history,  and  especially 
its  growth  from  the  earliest  times.  In  a  very  im- 
portant sense  such  a  study  is  the  study  of  our  own 
history,  going  down,  as  it  were,  into  the  very  depths 
from  which  all  English-speaking  people  have  been 
taken,  and  exploring  them  to  find  out  how  the  English 
race  has  been  able  to  do  so  large  a  work  in  the  world's 
history. 

But  such  a  study  has  even  a  nearer  and  more  special 
interest  for  us.  The  three  great  characteristic  facts  of 
American  history  at  present  evolved  are  these:  1.  The 
fusion  of  a  great  variety  of  races  over  a  vast  continent, 
and  that  in  a  comparatively  short  time,  not  merely 
into  one  nation,  but  into  one  civilization,  and  the  pre- 
dominance of  English  law  and  English  ideas  over  all 
others  as  the  result  of  that  fusion.  2.  A  general  re- 
spect and  obedience  to  law,  as  such,  throughout  the 
country,  with  all  the  restraining  influence  which  such 
a  habit  imposes.  3.  The  establishment  of  a  govern- 
ment federative  in  its  form,  but  national  in  its  power. 
Our  experience  in  regard  to  the  first  of  these  two  char- 
acteristic facts  or  outgrowths  of  our  condition  is  merely 


192  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

a  repetition  of  the  course  of  early  English  history,  only, 
of  course,  upon  a  much  larger  scale.  England  is  made 
up,  as  our  country  has  been,  by  a  fusion  of  races,  the 
Anglo-Saxon  element  with  her,  as  with  us,  always  pre- 
dominant. She  has  had  to  combine,  as  we  have  done, 
for  the  full  development  of  her  national  life,  Celts 
with  Romans,  Saxons  with  Scandinavians,  Teutons  with 
Latins.  Like  ourselves,  she  has  known  how  to  make 
them  members  of  the  same  family,  and  in  this  lies 
her  strength.  How  she  did  it  we  shall  hope  to  tell, 
and  the  study  of  the  process  is  full  of  practical  lessons 
for  us. 

In  a  previous  chapter  we  have  explained  how  this 
process  of  assimilation  which  took  place  in  all  the 
nations  which  had  originally  formed  portions  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  and  which  were  invaded  by  the  Ger- 
man tribes,  was  accomplished  in  certain  portions  of  the 
Continent.  In  France  its  final  outcome  was  centraliza- 
tion and  despotism ;  in  Germany,  feudal  separatism  and 
weakness;  in  England,  after  a  long  struggle,  liberty 
founded  on  law.  The  mere  fusion  of  a  number  of 
tribes  into  a  homogeneous  people  upon  the  same  terri- 
tory, with  the  recognized  leadership  of  that  one  among 
them  which  had  shown  itself  most  powerful,  seems  at 
first  a  very  simple  matter,  almost  insignificant  as  a 
force  affecting  the  general  current  of  civilization ;  and 
yet  history  tells  us  that  England  and  the  nations  on  the 
Continent  differ  as  they  do  because  this  force  was  so 
differently  applied  in  these  different  countries.  And 


ROMAN  CONQUEST.  193 

so  with  that  second  characteristic  fact  of  our  civiliza- 
tion, the  habit  of  reverence  for  law  as  such,  and  the 
self-restraint  which  that  habit  imposes, — this  too  comes 
to  us  from  England  as  our  most  precious  inheritance; 
and  perhaps  the  most  valuable  practical  lesson  we  learn 
when  we  study  English  history  is  the  manner  in  which 
this  habit  grew  up  even  among  the  wild  tribes  who  con- 
tended there  in  early  times  for  the  mastery,  and  how. 
once  fixed  in  the  English  character,  it  has  saved  them, 
as  it  saved  us  and  all  English-speaking  people,  from 
the  excesses  of  revolutionary  force  and  violence  which 
have  usually  characterized  the  struggles  for  change  in 
Continental  countries. 

We  must  confine  ourselves  chiefly  to  seeking  out  the 
characteristics  of  the  English  race  as  shown  in  their 
earlier  history  which  have  been  more  or  less  reproduced 
in  our  own  national  life  and  history,  and  explaining 
their  applications.  England,  as  we  know,  was  brought 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  Roman  world  by  the  invasion 
of  Caesar,  B.C.  55.  He  found  there  a  population  of 
fierce  barbarians,  whose  resistance  to  his  invasion  was  as 
obstinate  as  it  was  unexpected,  and  he  wisely  decided 
that  his  project  for  the  conquest  of  the  island  at  that 
time  should  be  given  up.  For  nearly  a  hundred  years 
no  further  attempt  was  made  by  the  Romans  to  subdue 
and  occupy  the  country.  The  tribes  which  then  inhab- 
ited it  were  Celtic,  and  the  strongest,  perhaps  the  only, 
bond  which  united  them  was  their  religion.  Of  this, 

the  chief  officers  and  priests  were  called  Druids,  who 

17 


194  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

at  the  same  time  were  their  bards  who  celebrated  their 
heroic  exploits  in  war;  and  to  the  Romans  at  least  their 
religion  and  the  influence  of  the  Druids  were  insepara- 
bly associated  with  the  obstinate  defence  of  the  country 
against  their  arms.  But  we  know  almost  nothing  of 
these  primitive  people.  We  must  not  rest  on  Mr.  Ten- 
nyson's fascinating  pictures  of  King  Arthur  and  the 
Knights  of  the  Round  Table  as  trustworthy  sources 
of  information,  for  history  tells  us  little  about  them. 
Their  chief  interest  to  us  lies  in  their  relations  with 
their  Roman  conquerors,  and  we  are  curious  to  know 
how  and  in  what  way  the  assimilating  power  of  Roman 
civilization  during  four  centuries  affected  them. 

The  final  conquest  took  place  under  the  Emperor 
Claudius  in  A.D.  61.  The  natives  in  their  despair 
showed,  in  the  defence  of  their  country,  the  most  deter- 
mined courage,  and  Caractacus,  or  Caradoc,  and  Boadicea, 
Queen  of  the  Iceni,  as  their  leaders,  are  among  the  fore- 
most of  the  early  English  heroes.  But  no  nation  or 
tribe  in  the  older  world  could  withstand  for  a  long  period 
the  irresistible  force  of  the  Roman  arms.  The  Celtic 
Britons  were  no  exception,  and  after  a  most  obstinate  re- 
sistance they  too  became  Romanized,  after  the  manner 
adopted  by  the  Empire  in  conquered  districts.  The 
Roman  occupation  was  organized ;  in  other  words,  their 
military  rule  was  arranged  according  to  the  uniform 
pattern.  Two  prefects  representing  the  Emperor  were 
appointed  for  the  government  of  the  country, — the  one 
residing  at  London,  the  other  at  York.  The  first  care 


THE  ROMAN  RULE.  195 

of  the  Romans  upon  the  occupation  of  a  conquered  coun- 
try was  the  making  of  roads  which  brought  their  military 
posts  into  easy  communication.  In  the  second  century 
three  legions  were  stationed  in  England, — one,  each,  at 
York,  at  Chester,  and  at  Caerleon-on-Usk,  on  the  borders 
of  Wales.  Accordingly,  one  great  road,  called  Watling 
Street,  extended  from  London  to  Chester  northwesterly, 
another  led  immediately  north  from  London  to  York, 
another  through  the  Eastern  counties  to  Cambridge  and 
Lincoln,  and  still  another  westward  from  London  to 
Bath.  There  was  also  a  road  from  the  coast  to  London 
by  way  of  Canterbury.  Roman  military  stations  were 
found  in  other  parts  of  the  country  which  are  important 
in  history  as  the  nuclei  of  future  towns  and  cities,  and  as 
centres  from  which  civilization  gradually  radiated  into 
the  surrounding  country,  a  large  portion  of  which  at  that 
time  was  made  up  of  dense  forests  and  impenetrable 
morasses.  A  motley  array  of  traders  and  camp-fol- 
lowers grew  up  around  these  military  stations,  which 
soon  became  colonies  in  which  the  life  and  manners 
were  wholly  Roman.  In  them  were  soon  to  be  found 
those  invariable  accompaniments  of  Roman  civilization, 
— the  bath,  the  forum,  and  sometimes,  in  the  most  im- 
portant of  them,  the  amphitheatre. 

During  the  Roman  domination  some  of  these  towns 
became,  after  the  Roman  pattern,  munidpia,  and,  in 
subordination  to  the  central  government,  self-governing. 
They  had  their  prefects,  their  scabini,  their  curiales,  as 
in  other  portions  of  the  Empire,  who  performed  duties 


196  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

in  these  cities  similar  to  those  which  I  have  described 
as  devolving  on  officers  of  the  same  name  in  the  Roman 
cities  in  Gaul.  It  is  important  for  us  to  remember  that 
these  city  governments  were  the  predecessors,  and  in  a 
certain  sense  the  models  of  the  organization,  of  the 
municipal  corporations  of  modern  times,  with  their 
mayor,  aldermen,  and  common  council.  The  life  of 
the  Roman  camps,  out  of  which  these  cities  grew,  was 
not  without  great  influence  upon  their  subsequent  his- 
tory. They  became  fortresses,  and  as  such  capable  of 
protecting  their  inhabitants,  and  centres  of  knowledge, 
wealth,  and  power,  able  to  preserve  in  the  worst  of 
times  the  traditions  at  least  of  local  self-government. 
In  the  time  of  the  Roman  domination  they  were  gov- 
erned by  the  Roman  law,  which,  bad  as  it  was  as  far  as 
the  liberty  of  the  citizen  was  concerned,  was  at  any  rate 
better  than  the  barbarism  which  ruled  the  country  dis- 
tricts, peopled  by  the  wild  Celts,  around  them.  These 
cities  were  at  least  training-schools  for  a  larger  and  more 
liberal  public  life. 

When  the  Romans  left  the  country,  the  framework 
of  their  organization  of  city  life  at  least  remained.  The 
meetings  of  the  curia  became  gradually  transformed 
into  the  Saxon  gemotts,  where  some  rude  principle  of 
representation  was  recognized ;  and  the  Roman  basilica 
became  the  Saxon  guildhall,  in  which  the  judge  and 
jury  were  substituted  for  the  Roman  Judex,  who  was 
both  the  interpreter  of  the  law  and  the  judge  of  the 
facts.  Many  of  these  towns  became,  during  the  Roman 


RELATIONS  OF  THE  ROMANS  TO  THE  CELTS.  197 

occupation,  comparatively  important  manufacturing 
places.  The  peace  which  the  Roman  rule  enforced 
favored  trade  and  commerce.  The  mines  of  iron,  tin, 
and  lead  were  worked  to  great  advantage;  and  we  must 
infer  that  the  country  produced  immense  supplies  of 
food  when  we  read  that  under  the  Emperor  Julian 
(A.D.  358)  eight  hundred  vessels  were  employed  in  the 
corn  trade  between  the  English  coast  and  the  Roman 
colonies  on  the'  Rhine. 

There  was  constant  intercourse,  of  course,  between 
the  military  colonists  of  the  towns  and  the  native 
population  of  the  country  districts,  and  possibly  some 
intermarriages;  yet  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  outside  of 
these  towns  the  Roman  language,  religion,  and  law 
seemed  to  have  had  no  power  of  assimilation  with  the 
native  growth,  nor  have  we  any  evidence  that  any  was 
attempted.  We  must  look  to  a  later  period  in  English 
history,  and  as  a  result  of  a  later  conquest,  for  the  in- 
corporation into  its  life  of  that  Latin  culture  by  which 
it  became  at  length  so  enriched.  Great  as  was  the  Ro- 
man power  during  its  domination  in  Britain,  it  is  some- 
what surprising,  when  we  remember  that  it  lasted  nearly 
four  centuries,  to  find  that  it  did  not  leave  deeper  and 
more  enduring  marks  on  the  life  of  the  country.  To 
sum  up,  the  occupation  of  Britain  by  the  Romans,  as  it 
has  been  well  said,  was,  like  the  French  colonization  of 
Algeria,  chiefly  an  occupation  for  military  purposes,  and 
hence  it  never  took  any  very  deep  root  in  the  soil.  The 

government  was  military  for  the  Roman  legions  and  the 

17* 


]98  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

country  districts,  and  municipal  for  the  large  towns;  the 
conquerors  were  unsympathetic  and  hard  ;  and  thus  it  is, 
perhaps,  that  we  have  not  now  a  Romanized  England, 
as  we  have  a  Romanized  France  and  Spain. 

The  Roman  military  occupation  of  Britain  ceased  in 
410,  when  the  troops  stationed  there  were  withdrawn 
in  order  to  defend  Italy  against  the  threatened  invasion 
of  the  Goths  and  Burgundians.  The  country  soon  fell 
into  the  possession  of  numerous  native  chiefs  with  a 
very  feeble  bond  of  union  between  them,  and  in  this 
condition  its  rulers  were  forced  to  withstand  the  formi- 
dable inroads  of  the  Picts,  who  were  merely  native 
Britons  who  had  been  driven  by  the  Roman  conquest 
to  take  refuge  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland.  They 
were  in  league  with  a  tribe  of  marauders  from  Ireland, 
strangely  enough  then  called  Scoti.  The  story  of  Vor- 
tigern  and  of  the  beautiful  but  faithless  Rowena,  and 
of  Hengist  and  Horsa,  may  be  apocryphal  in  some 
of  its  details,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  rulers 
of  Britain,  whoever  they  were,  in  449  resolved,  in 
their  weakness,  to  call  in  the  aid,  for  the  defence  of  the 
country  against  these  Picts  and  Scots,  of  those  whom 
we  have  been  in  the  habit  of  calling  Anglo-Saxons,  but 
who  are  now  spoken  of  as  par  excellence  English. 
These  Anglo-Saxons  were  of  the  same  race  as  the 
Northmen,  then  known  in  England  only  as  pirates  or 
sea-rovers,  with  a  high  reputation  for  that  sort  of  mili- 
tary skill  which  rests  upon  reckless  bravery  and  love 
of  adventure.  These  warriors,  who  at  different  times 


WHENCE   THE  ANGLO-SAXONS  CAME.    199 

assailed  different  portions  of  the  English  coast,  proved 
on  their  arrival,  as  might  have  been  expected,  con- 
querors rather  than  allies  of  the  people  who  had  in- 
vited them  to  assist  in  the  defence  of  their  country 
against  its  internal  enemies.  Surely  and  steadily,  if 
slowly,  they  drove  back  the  native  Britons,  resolving  to 
occupy  the  country  permanently,  and  striving  to  blot 
from  its  surface  every  trace  of  the  two  peoples  who  had 
previously  possessed  it,  even  going  so  far,  it  is  said,  as  to 
remove  the  Roman  mile-stones  from  the  roads. 

Who,  then,  were  these  English,  now  so  called,  who 
marked  their  advance  into  the  country  afterwards  called 
by  their  name  with  such  devastation  ?  They  were  Saxon 
tribes,  of  the  Teutonic  race,  from  the  shores  of  the  Ger- 
man Ocean,  settled  in  the  territory  between  the  rivers 
Elbe  and  Weser,  and,  like  all  the  tribes  of  the  North  at 
that  period,  they  had  gained  their  power  by  the  renown 
attached  to  their  achievements  as  sea-rovers.  But  their 
conquest  of  England  shows  that  they  were  as  formi- 
dable in  the  use  of  their  military  power  on  land  as  at 
sea.  The  advance-guard  of  these  tribes  was  called 
Jutes,  and  their  point  of  attack  was  Kent,  the  south- 
eastern county  of  England.  This  they  soon  subdued 
and  erected  it  into  a  Jutish  kingdom,  with  Canterbury 
as  its  capital.  A  few  years  later,  another  band  of  ma- 
rauders, Saxons,  took  possession  of  the  territory  west 
of  Kent  and  established  what  was  afterwards  known  as 
the  kingdom  of  Sussex,  or  the  South  Saxon  country. 
Still  later,  another  tribe,  under  the  command  of  Cerdic 


200  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

and  Cymric,  landed  at  Southampton,  and,  although  their 
progress  into  the  interior  was  delayed  by  a  terrible  de- 
feat which  they  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  celebrated 
British  prince  Arthur,  they  succeeded  in  founding  the 
Saxon  kingdom  of  Wessex,  or  of  the  West  Saxons.  This 
was  the  most  extensive  in  point  of  territory  which  the 
invaders  had  yet  established,  and  it  was  destined,  under 
a  succession  of  able  kings,  to  gain  for  a  time  at  least  the 
supremacy  or  overlordship  of  all  the  Saxon  settlements 
in  England.  Still  later,  the  Saxons  in  Germany,  em- 
boldened by  the  success  of  their  countrymen  in  the  south 
of  England,  landed  on  the  east  coast  and  took  possession 
of  the  country,  penetrating  far  into  the  interior  both  on 
the  north  and  south  of  the  river  Humber,  carrying  dev- 
astation wherever  they  went,  naming  the  lands  on  the 
north  of  that  river  Northumbria,  and  those  to  the  south 
East  Anglia,  while  the  territory  to  the  west  was  called 
Mid  Anglia,  or  Mercia,  or  the  Mark.  These  seven  king- 
doms were  formerly  called  the  Saxon  Heptarchy ;  but 
later  researches  have  shown  that  there  was  in  reality  no 
common  government  among  them,  and  that  the  superior- 
ity of  Wessex  at  one  time  or  of  Mercia  at  another  was 
due  to  the  greater  force  of  one  or  the  other  kingdom  for 
the  time  being.  So  slowly  and  gradually  did  the  suc- 
cessive occupation  of  the  various  Saxon  tribes  take 
place  in  England,  that  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  elapsed 
before  the  conquest  was  finally  completed.  The  settle- 
ment of  the  country  after  this  conquest  has  usually  been 
considered  as  forming  the  true  foundation  of  English 


ANGLO-SAXON  TRAITS  IN  GERMANY.     201 

life  as  we  know  it  in  modern  times.  It  was  a  genuine 
transplantation  of  Teutonic  Saxondom  into  English  soil, 
and  neither  age  nor  environment  has  destroyed  its  vital 
energy.  We  must  study,  therefore,  the  nature  of  the 
original  seed,  and  of  the  soil  to  which  it  was  removed. 
We  shall  find  in  it  the  germ  of  much  that  is  character- 
istic of  our  modern  English  and  American  life. 

The  Saxons,  in  their  native  country,  and  long  after 
they  took  up  'their  abode  in  England,  dwelt  in  what 
are  called  "village  communities,"  in  which  each  family 
possessed  a  homestead.  These  villages  were  surrounded 
by  the  mark,  or  gau,  or,  in  more  modern  language,  the 
common,  which  was  the  undivided  property  of  the  fami- 
lies in  the  village,  and  was  cultivated  by  them  for  their 
common  benefit  in  certain  proportions  as  decided  by  the 
assembly,  or  vritan,  composed  of  the  heads  of  the  fami- 
lies. Here  were  also  settled  all  questions  affecting  the 
community.  These  communities  were  bound  together 
as  families,  and  not  as  individuals,  the  family  being  re- 
sponsible for  the  acts  of  each  of  its  members;  and  it 
received,  in  like  manner,  the  compensation  paid  for 
wrong  and  injury  done  to  any  one  of  them.  The 
North  Germans  were  always  farmers  when  not  engaged 
in  warlike  expeditions.  I  have  explained  how  strong 
were  the  efforts  made  by  the  first  of  the  Saxon  Em- 
perors, Henry  the  Fowler,  to  induce  the  tribesmen  to 
live  in  cities  and  not  in  small  villages  scattered  through 
the  country,  and  how  important  his  success  in  the  meas- 
ures he  took  for  that  purpose  has  been  considered  as 


202  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

promoting  civilization  in  Germany.  So,  in  England, 
the  Saxon  invaders,  for  a  long  time,  shunned  residence 
in  the  Roman  cities.  They  preferred  their  village  organ- 
ization, which,  with  tithings,  or  districts  of  ten  families, 
hundreds,  with  a  hundred  families  each,  and  shires,  with 
a  certain  number  of  hundreds,  continued,  with  various 
well-defined  powers,  responsibilities,  and  duties  annexed 
to  them,  far  into  the  Middle  Age. 

The  Saxon  invaders  were  coarse  feeders  and  hard 
drinkers,  and,  in  order  to  live  in  the  climate  and  with 
the  scant  resources  supplied  by  nature,  they  were  forced 
to  become  steady  and  persistent  workers,  at  least  in  time 
of  peace.  They  are  said  to  have  been  domestic  in  their 
habits,  and  to  have  been  fond  of  their  wives  and  children. 
Whether  this  was  due  to  the  climate,  which  forbade  out- 
door amusements,  as  Mr.  Taine  says,  or  to  their  having 
looked  upon  their  women,  as  Tacitus  says,  as  possess- 
ing something  of  divine  qualities  and  to  be  reverenced 
accordingly,  I  cannot  undertake  to  decide:  however  this 
may  be,  we  are  to  look  upon  the  peculiar  English  idea  of 
home,  with  its  incalculable  influence  in  history  upon  the 
national  character,  as  based  very  much  upon  the  ancient 
Anglo-Saxon's  love  of  his  hearth-stone.  In  England 
and  in  the  best  English  literature  the  wife  and  the  mother 
are  the  highest  types  of  womanhood ;  in  more  southern 
and  Latin  countries  a  totally  different  type  of  woman  is 
recognized  as  the  most  exalted, — one  which  the  imagina- 
tion invests  with  grace  and  elegance  and  passion,  very 
unlike  that  of  the  perfect  English  or  American  woman. 


THREE  CLASSES  AMONG  THE  ANGLO-SAXONS.  203 

There  were  three  classes  of  men  among  the  Anglo- 
Saxoiis  in  their  own  country, — the  noble,  the  common 
freeman,  and  the  slavre ;  and  this  fundamental  organiza- 
tion of  the  whole  Teutonic,  I  may  say  of  the  whole 
Aryan,  world,  they  brought  with  them  into  England 
when  they  came  as  conquerors,  and  it  formed  the  basis 
of  their  settlement  there.  As  this  was  perhaps  the  most 
indestructible  of  all  their  political  institutions,  and  as  it 
has  been  more  fruitful  than  any  other  in  moulding  their 
ideas  of  government,  not  only  in  England  but  among 
all  English-speaking  people,  ourselves  included,  we  must 
examine  it  with  some  care. 

In  the  Saxon  tongue  these  three  classes  were  named 
Ealdormen,  Ceorls  or  Churls,  and  Serfs,  and  they  have 
been  perpetuated  in  the  English  Constitution  and  lan- 
guage, as  lords  and  commons  and  mere  laborers,  under 
various  names.  The  ealdormen  were  nobles  by  birth, 
and  generally  the  leaders  in  war.  Their  functions  are 
supposed  to  have  resembled  those  performed  by  the 
officer  named  by  the  Romans  of  the  later  Empire  Dux. 
In  addition  to  these  officers,  there  was  one  above  all, 
named  King,  whose  title  seems  to  have  depended  partly 
upon  the  popular  belief  of  his  descent  from  Odin  and 
partly  upon  his  election  by  the  tribe.  He  was  not  neces- 
sarily a  leader  in  war,  and  his  person,  being  invested 
with  a  certain  sort  of  reverence  due  to  his  divine 
lineage,  was  regarded  as  inviolable.  This  inviolability 
of  the  monarch  is  a  provision  of  the  English  Constitution 
which  has  characterized  it  in  all  history.  Legally  "  the 


204  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

king  could  do  no  wrong;"  and  therefore  his  advisers, 
and  not  himself,  were  responsible  for  the  acts  of  govern- 
ment. I  say  legally,  by  which  I  mean  that  under  ordi- 
nary circumstances  he  was  irresponsible,  according  to  the 
fundamental  Teutonic  conception  of  monarchy;  but  there 
never  was  a  period  in  English  history  in  which  the  right 
to  depose  a  king  for  cause  was  not  asserted  and  main- 
tained by  the  body  claiming  to  represent  at  the  time  the 
people  in  the  last  resort,  whether  that  body  was  called 
Witan,  or  Parliament,  or  'Convention, — whether  the 
alleged  offen.ce  was,  as  the  early  English  would  have 
said,  incompetency,  or,  as  the  men  of  1688  proclaimed, 
because  the  king  had  broken  by  his  acts  the  original 
contract  between  himself  and  his  people.  Six  times  in 
the  last  nine  hundred  years  has  the  Great  Council  of  the 
nation  made  use  of  this  power  of  deposition. 

Of  the  greater  nobles  there  soon  grew  to  be  two  classes, 
whom  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish.  The  Ealdormen 
were  nobles  by  birth  and  hereditary  descent ;  the  Thanes, 
as  the  other  class  was  called,  were  men  of  gentle  birth, 
who  attached  themselves  to  the  service  of  the  king  as 
warriors, — commended  themselves,  as  the  expression  was, 
— and,  having  distinguished  themselves  in  war,  were  re- 
warded by  the  kings  generally  with  grants  of  land,  which 
gradually  became  so  numerous  that  this  class  became 
a  distinct  order,  called  Knights,  whose  estates  were  held 
upon  condition  of  rendering  military  service  for  these 
lands.  .Out  of  this  arrangement  gradually  grew  the 
feudal  system,  the  relation  of  lord  and  vassal  having, 


ANGLO-SAXON  ORGANIZATION.  205 

after  the  Norman  conquest,  universally  replaced  both  that 
of  military  patronage  and  that  of  those  whose  position 
depended  upon  their  birth.  The  witenagemot,  or  assem- 
bly of  the  wise  and  noble,  decided  in  England,  as  it  had 
done  in  Germany,  all  questions  of  importance  to  the 
tribes  composing  the  nation.  The  shiregemot,  or  assembly 
of  the  shire  or  county,  was  rather  a  judicial  tribunal  or 
court  than  a  deliberative  body.  It  met  several  times  a 
year,  administering  justice  in  accordance  with  the  laws, 
and  punishing  crime  committed  within  its  limits.  It 
was  probably  the  most  powerful  instrument  of  local  self- 
government  of  those  days,  and  as  such  it,  or  something 
resembling  it,  has  been  preserved  in  the  political  organi- 
zation of  all  English-speaking  peoples. 

Trial  by  jury,  as  we  know  it  now,  was  not  one  of  the 
early  English  institutions,  although  it  has  been  asserted 
that  provision  was  made  for  it  in  the  laws  of  King 
Alfred.  The  mode  of  settling  disputed  questions  of 
fact  was  at  first  by  means  of  compurgators ;  that  is,  in 
cases  of  doubt  a  certain  number  of  a  man's  neighbors 
were  permitted  to  declare  that  they  believed  his  state- 
ment of  his  case  to  be  correct,  and  this  was  held  to 
be  conclusive.  While  this  shows  the  value  attached  to 
personal  character  by  the  early  English  law,  the  system 
of  frank-pledge,  by  which  the  community  in  which  a 
man  lived  became  responsible  for  his  wrong-doings,  is 
an  illustration  of  that  solidarite  of  interests  between  the 
individual  and  the  society  of  which  he  was  a  member 

which  our  modern  enthusiastic  reformers  have  vainly 

18 


206  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

striven  to  realize.  Like  all  Teutonic  tribes,  they  seem 
to  have  had  little  conception  of  crime  as  a  moral  offence, 
— a  feeling  which  prevailed  after  they  embraced  Chris- 
tianity, because  it  was  supposed  that  the  Church  should 
take  exclusive  cognizance  of  the  moral  aspect  of  the 
case, — and  all  offences,  save  those  of  the  gravest  kind, 
were  compounded  for  by  the  payment  of  a  sum  to  the 
sufferer  or  his  relatives,  graded  according  to  the  rank  of 
the  offender  or  of  his  victim. 

The  Saxon  conquerors  no  doubt  distributed  among 
themselves,  first,  the  enclosed  and  cultivable  land  of  the 
country,  having,  of  course,  confiscated  any  title  of  its 
previous  holders.  These  lands  were  all  charged  with  the 
burden  of  the  trinoda  necessitas,  a  triple  obligation  or 
tax  to  the  State,  consisting  of  money  enough  to  con- 
struct the  roads,  to  build  fortresses,  and  to  provide  for 
the  military  defence.  Feudal  tenures,  at  least  in  the 
strictest  sense,  were  not  yet :  there  were  lands  belonging 
to  the  State  and  called  ager  publicus,  or  folkland,  held  in 
reserve  for  future  public  uses,  which  might  be  leased  by 
the  king,  or  conferred  as  rewards  for  services,  but  which 
could  not  be  absolutely  alienated  without  the  consent  of 
the  uritan. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  more  striking  characteristics  of 
the  constitution  of  the  early  English  political  organiza- 
tion ;  and,  considering  that  the  chief  occupation  of  the 
tribes  was  war  with  each  other  and  with  their  Danish 
invaders  for  nearly  five  hundred  years,  and  the  prevail- 
ing habits  of  lawless  violence  engendered  by  these  wars, 


FUSION  OF  RACES  IN  ENGLAND.         207 

it  shows  the  toughness  of  the  fibre  of  the  race,  and  its 
historical  instincts,  if  I  may  so  express  myself,  that 
their  civil  laws  should  have  remained  through  all 
chances  and  changes  the  basis  of  modern  English  juris- 
prudence, just  as  the  Anglo-Saxon  tongue  has  been. the 
enduring  foundation  of  our  modern  English  language. 
This  has  been  due  in  a  great  measure  to  the  process  of 
the  fusion  of  races  which  has  been  going  on  during  the 
whole  course  of  English  history,  and  which  has  re- 
sulted, often  after  a  struggle  of  centuries,  but  always 
in  the  end,  in  the  supremacy  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  ele- 
ment. A  few  words  about  two  of  the  earliest  of  these 
fusions,  which  helped  to  bring  the  whole  territory  of 
England  under  one  rule. 

The  first  of  these  attempts  to  establish  a  common 
English  family  was  by  the  fusion  of  the  Saxons  with 
the  Angles,  who  had  been  neighboring  tribes  in  Ger- 
many. In  England  the  first  occupied  the  southern  and 
western  portions,  the  other  the  northern  and  eastern 
portions,  of  the  country.  While  they  were  both  Teu- 
tonic tribes,  each  spoke  a  dialect  unknown  to  the  other, 
and  there  was  a  slightly  different  organization  in  their 
society.  The  northern  province  at  least  was  Christian, 
while  the  population  of  the  Saxon  kingdoms  was  Pa- 
gan, and  they  were  both  alike  fierce,  warlike,  and  am- 
bitious. After  many  wars,  the  details  of  which,  as 
Milton  says,  would  interest  us  as  much  as  the  "  stories 
of  the  battles  of  the  kites  and  crows,"  the  overlordship 
of  the  seven  kingdoms,  forming  what  used  to  be  called 


208  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  Saxon  Heptarchy,  fell  first  to  Mereia,  the  Midland 
kingdom,  and  after  the  death  of  Offa,  the  king  of  that 
country,  Mercia  was  assailed  by  Egbert,  the  King  of  the 
West  Saxons,  and  completely  subdued  by  him.  This 
was,  in  the  year  827  ;  a  few  years  after,  Egbert  invaded 
Northumbria,  or  the  district  north  of  the  Humber,  and 
reduced  that  country  also  to  his  obedience,  so  that  the 
result  was  that  he  ceased  in  828  to  be  merely  King  of 
Wessex,  and  became  thenceforth  nominal  ruler  of  the 
whole  English  territory,  from  the  Channel  to  the  Firth 
of  Forth.  He  then  assumed  the  title  of  King  of  the 
English,  the  rulers  of  the  kingdoms  composing  it  ac- 
knowledging him  as  overlord. 

This  is  an  important  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  coun- 
try, for  it  marks  the  period  when  it  came,  for  the  first 
time  since  the  retirement  of  the  Romans,  even  nominally, 
under  the  sway  of  one  ruler.  No  sooner  had  this  result 
been  achieved,  and  the  population  of  the  country  had 
become,  in  name  at  least,  English,  than  they  were  called 
upon  to  resist  the  most  formidable  invasion  by  which 
they  had  yet  been  attacked.  These  new  invaders  came 
not  merely  to  make  raids  and  to  plunder,  but  to  occupy 
permanently  the  country.  They  were  of  that  same  in- 
domitable race  of  Northmen  whom  we  recognize  as  the 
race  d'tlite  of  the  Middle  Age,  whom  we  find  moving 
in  triumph  through  all  parts  of  Europe,  conquering  all 
the  various  races  with  whom  they  came  in  contact,  as 
if  to  teach  us  what  skill  and  valor  and  enterprise  may 
do  in  the  work  of  this  world.  Those  who  invaded. 


DANISH  INVASION.  209 

England  were  among  the  fiercest  and  most  cruel  of 
their  race,  and  they  were  urged  on  by  a  thirst  of  re- 
venge for  the  wrongs  which  they  alleged  the  Saxons 
had  done  them,  as  well  as  by  the  ordinary  motive  for 
such  incursions, — the  love  of  plunder.  Having  occupied 
Northumbria,  and  mastered  the  Anglian  parts  (the  east- 
ern and  middle)  of  England,  they  marched  towards  the 
Saxons  of  Wessex,  whose  king  at  that  time  was  the 
celebrated  Alfred  the  Great.  For  seven  years  the  war 
continued  without  any  decisive  results,  Alfred  being 
often  reduced  to  the  greatest  straits  to  preserve  his  own 
life,  while  the  enemy  overran  his  country.  At  last  a 
battle  was  fought,  resulting  in  such  a  victory  of  the 
Saxons  that  a  treaty  (that  of  Wed  more)  was  concluded 
between  King  Alfred  and  the  Danes  in  878,  by  which 
the  territory  of  England  was  divided  between  them, 
the  line  of  demarcation  being  roughly  the  old  Roman 
Watling  Street,  extending,  as  I  have  said,  in  a  north- 
westerly direction,  from  London  to  Chester.  The  most 
important  result  of  this  treaty  was  that  the  Danish  chiefs 
consented  to  embrace  Christianity,  doubtless  yielding 
after  the  manner  of  the  victims  of  the  conversions  of 
Charlemagne  on  the  Elbe.  The  treaty  gave,  however, 
a  certain  period  of  quiet  to  that  part  of  the  country 
ruled  by  Alfred,  and  it  was  during  this  period  that 
this  great  king  proved  himself  as  remarkable  for  his 
political  capacity  as  he  had  previously  shown  himself 
illustrious  as  a  warrior. 

The  reign  of  Alfred  is  too  large  a  subject  to  dwell 
18* 


210  MEDIAEVAL   HISTORY. 

upon  here.  It  has  been  the  habit  to  ascribe  in  times 
gone  by  all  that  was  good  in  England  in  the  Saxon  era 
to  the  influence  of  the  laws  of  Alfred.  Later  investiga- 
tions hardly  confirm  this  view.  The  king,  like  many 
other  great  men,  seems  to  have  been  a  good  deal  of  a 
theorist :  his  code  appears  hardly  opportune  or  suited  to 
the  needs  of  the  rough,  hard  times  of  that  age.  He  was 
a  philosopher  rather  than  a  statesman ;  although  one  of 
his  schemes — that  of  the  creation  of  a  navy  as  the  proper 
means  of  defending  an  island  like  England  from  foreign 
invasion — was  one  of  the  most  far-sighted  and  practical 
ever  adopted  by  an  English  law-giver.  The  fusion  of 
English  and  Dane  was  very  far  from  completed.  Under 
the  successors  of  Alfred,  Danes  and  Northmen  from 
France  were  the  rulers  of  the  country  for  many  genera- 
tions afterwards.  But  beneath  this  outward  rule  the 
leaven  of  the  English  spirit  was  never  wanting  to  leaven 
the  whole  mass  with  the  characteristic  English  traits, 
and  the  very  struggles  which  it  was  forced  to  make  to 
assert  itself  gave  precision  to  its  aims  and  served  to 
broaden  the  basis  of  the  English  nationality.  During 
the  rule  of  the  Danes  and  of  the  early  Norman  kings, 
when  the  native  English  seemed,  to  outward  appearance, 
wholly  conquered,  they  were  really,  as  subsequent  histor) 
proves,  always  gaming  strength,  and  making  ready  to 
assert  their  claim  to  a  share  in  the  government  of  their 
conquerors,  until  at  last  they  became  strong  enough  to 
make  their  own  characteristic  life  predominant  in  its 
policy  and  administration  and  permanent  in  its  influence. 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  ENGLAND.  211 

But  I  have  said  nothing  yet  of  the  most  potent 
agency  of  the  fusion  of  the  different  races  inhabiting 
England  previous  to  the  Norman  conquest :  I  mean  the 
organization  of  the  Christian  Church.  This,  more  than 
anything  else,  in  the  end,  made  Britons  and  Anglo- 
Saxons,  Danes  and  Normans,  one  people,  in  religion, 
at  least,  and  brought  them  under  the  same  form  of 
government,  into  those  relations  with  the  rest  of  Chris- 
tendom which  made  England  part  of  the  great  Chris- 
tian commonwealth  and  enabled  her  to  take  a  prominent 
place  in  the  general  movement  of  European  progress. 
How  far  Christianity  was  introduced  into  England  in 
the  time  of  the  Celtic  Britons,  or  of  their  successors  the 
Romans,  is  a  disputed  question.  If  it  prevailed  at  all 
previous  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  invasion  of  the  country,  it 
was  certainly  rooted  out  by  them;  for  the  invaders — 
Anglo-Saxons — were  fierce  Pagans.  Some  time  during 
the  Anglo-Saxon  occupation  of  England  Christianity 
made  great  progress  in  Ireland,  which  was,  owing  to  its 
geographical  position,  the  refuge  of  scholars  in  those 
days.  Many  saints  flourished  there,  and  many  famous 
monasteries,  schools,  and  churches  were  established.  One 
of  the  Irish  monks,  Columba,  crossed  to  Scotland  with 
the  object  of  converting  the  Picts,  and  on  the  western 
coast,  in  the  island  of  lona,  founded  a  celebrated  monas- 
tery, which  became  a  sort  of  mother-house  for  mission- 
aries who  preached  the  faith  as  far  as  Northumbria,  in 
England.  In  this  kingdom  they  had  great  success  in 
converting  its  king,  Oswald,  and  they  established  their 


212  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

headquarters  at  a  monastery  on  an  island  near  Whitby 
called  Lindisfarne,  the  Holy  Isle.  These  monks  fol- 
lowed the  rule  of  Columba  and  of  lona,  and  not  that 
of  the  Church  of  Rome.  Meantime,  Pope  Gregory  the 
Great,  A.D.  597,  had  sent  his  famous  mission  under  Au- 
gustine and  his  monks  to  convert  the  Saxon  kingdoms  of 
the  south  of  England  to  Christianity,  and  to  endeavor 
to  bring  not  only  them,  but  those  in  the  north  also  who 
had  been  converted  by  the  Irish  monks,  to  the  Roman 
obedience,  by  establishing  if  possible  in  England  the 
Roman  Church  organization.  The  mission  was  a  most 
difficult  and  delicate  one,  and  it  was  long  before  its 
object  was  gained.  The  Pope  had  appointed  as  the 
Archbishop  of  York,  Wilfrith,  who  was  unceasing  in 
his  efforts  to  bring  the  Christians  of  North urnbria  and 
those  of  the  south  of  England  under  a  common  rule. 
These  efforts  continued  for  more  than  sixty  years,  and 
their  success  was  retarded  by  wars  between  the  two  sec- 
tions, and  by  a  common  heathen  enemy,  Penda,  King  of 
Mercia ;  but  at  last  the  Synod  of  Whitby  was  held  in 
664,  where  the  nominal  question  of  discussion  between 
the  two  Churches  was  as  to  the  proper  time  of  cele- 
brating Easter,  but  where  the  real  issue  was  a  far  more 
important  matter, — the  importance  of  which  it  is,  indeed, 
not  easy  to  exaggerate, — whether  the  Pope  or  the  monks 
from  lona  should  have  the  supreme  rule  in  the  Church 
of  England.  It  was  settled  in  that  synod  that  Christ 
had  given  the  power  of  the  keys  to  Peter,  and  not  to 
Columba.  The  king  thereupon  determined  to  submit 


THE  CHURCH  IN  ENGLAND  BECOMES  ROMAN.  213 

to  the  Pope,  and  not  to  the  successors  of  the  Abbot  of 
lona. 

This  most  momentous  decision  was  soon  followed 
by  the  appointment  of  a  Greek  monk,  Theodore  of 
Tarsus,  to  be  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  who  divided 
the  country  into  dioceses,  with  bishops  subordinate  to 
him.  I  call  this  decision  momentous,  not  merely  be- 
cause in  a  time  of  wild  lawlessness  it  settled  that  the 
religion  of  England  should  have  the  same  form  and 
organization  of  Christianity,  but  also  because  it  adopted 
that  form  which  had  then  become  common  to  the  rest  of 
Western  Europe  and  of  which  the  Pope  was  the  head. 
Such  an  organization,  as  I  have  said,  proved,  in  the 
hands  of  the  able  men  who  were  successively  put  in 
charge  of  it,  not  only  the  most  potent  agency  for  civil- 
izing the  nation,  but,  as  a  means  to  that  end,  for  fusing 
into  unity  its  discordant  elements.  In  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Church  the  bishops  and  the  abbots  of  the  great 
monasteries,  which  had  been  originally  missionary  foun- 
dations, were  the  centres  of  the  church  government. 
The  bishop  was  named  by  the  king  and  the  witan.  He 
ranked,  as  we  should  say  now,  as  a  peer  of  the  realm, 
with  a  seat  in  the  Great  Council.  The  administration 
of  the  Church,  both  as  to  its  revenues  and  as  to  its  dis- 
cipline, was  in  the  hands  of  these  bishops  and  abbots, 
assembled  in  synods.  The  bishops  were  personages  of 
great  importance,  and  were  often  called  upon  to  take 
a  direct  part  in  the  administration  of  the  secular  affairs 
of  the-  kingdom.  Their  dioceses  were  large  and  their 


214  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

revenues  immense,  and  the  difference  between  them  and 
the  ordinary  mass  priests,  who  ranked  with  the  churls 
and  shared  their  social  degradation,  was  very  great. 
The  real  power  was  in  their  hands  and  in  those  of  the 
canons  and  the  abbots  of  the  monasteries. 

Under  the  peculiar  jurisprudence  of  the  Anglo-Saxons, 
the  whole  of  what  may  be  called  the  correctional  police 
of  the  country  was  in  the  hands  of  the  clergy.  The  State 
might  inflict  fines  or  take  away  life,  but  only  the  bishop 
or  the  priest  could  enforce  penance  or  seclude  the  crimi- 
nal from  the  world.  The  practical  value  of  this  Church 
discipline  in  humanizing  and  civilizing  the  wild  Saxon 
tribes  cannot  be  overrated.  They  seem,  indeed,  to  have 
had  no  other  conception  of  the  moral  wrong  of  certain 
crimes  than  that  they  were  breaches  of  the  discipline  of 
the  Church.  To  them  murder  and  theft,  and  keeping 
Easter  on  the  wrong  day,  were  similar  offences,  because 
they  equally  violated  the  rule  of  Holy  Church.  So 
with  fasts,  which  in  those  days  of  coarse  gluttony  were 
essential  to  the  health  of  the  body,  not  to  say  of  the 
soul.  It  would  have  been  quite  idle  to  preach  absti- 
nence on  such  grounds  as  these,  or  even  on  the  higher 
ground  that  fasting  was  a  duty  enjoined  by  Christ :  so 
that  its  observance  was  made  dependent  upon  an  order 
or  rule  of  the  Church,  which  could  be  enforced  by  pen- 
ance. The  clergy  were  the  real  rulers  in  the  modern 
sense:  in  other  words,  they  governed  on  some  other 
principle  than  that  of  force,  although  force  was  never 
wanting  to  secure  obedience  to  their  discipline  when 


DUN  STAN  OF  CANTERBURY.  215 


necessary.  Hence  they  became  naturally  rich  and  pow- 
erful, and  it  is  not  surprising  that  we  find  the  whole 
current  of  progress  directed  by  them. 

The  representative  man  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Church, 
who  first  brought  the  ecclesiastical  power  into  the  ser- 
vice of  the  State,  striving  as  a  religious  reformer  to  miti- 
gate the  abuses  of  the  rude  government  of  the  times,  was 
the  celebrated  Dunstan,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  He 
was  born  in  928,  and  is  said  to  have  been  the  trusted 
servant  of  one  king,  Edred,  to  have  deprived  a  second, 
Edwy,  of  half  of  his  dominions,  to  have  established  a 
third,  Edgar,  on  the  throne,  and  to  have  directed  the 
policy  of  that  sovereign  and  his  successor,  Ethelred. 
He  is  chiefly  known  in  history  as  the  great  advocate  for 
enforcing  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  and  especially  of 
the  monks,  who  are  said  to  have  made  the  houses  which 
were  originally  established  as  mission-stations  homes  for 
large  families,  and  to  have  diverted  the  money  which 
had  been  given  to  the  Church  for  the  relief  of  the  suf- 
fering, to  support  them  in  luxurious  and  unbecoming 
living.  There  are  two  sides  to  this  controversy,  upon 
which  I  do  not  propose  to  enter  now,  but  its  chief  inter- 
est to  us  is  this,  that  Dunstan  succeeded  through  the  use 
of  the  power  of  the  State  in  firmly  establishing  a  rule 
of  ecclesiastical  discipline  wholly  at  variance  with  the 
preceding  practice.  Of  course  he  could  not  have  done 
so  had  he  merely  exercised  the  ordinary  power  of  a 
priest,  great  as  it  was  in  that  age.  But  he  was,  like 
Cardinal  Richelieu,  a  statesman  as  well  as  an  ecclesiastic; 


216  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

but,  unlike  the  cardinal,  his  statesmanship  was  always 
controlled  by  the  paramount  consideration  of  advancing 
the  Church  by  any  policy  he  adopted. 

Whatever  may  have  been  his  merits  or  demerits,  the 
era  of  peace  and  prosperity  in  England  ceased  for  a  long 
time  after  his  death.  The  Danes  soon  came  again  to 
England,  not  to  plunder  this  time,  but  to  conquer  and 
to  remain,  striving  to  make  the  country  a  member  of  a 
great  Scandinavian  confederacy.  This  proved  a  dream ; 
but  it  is  a  sad  truth  that,  beginning  from  the  reign  of 
Canute,  the  kings  of  England  for  two  hundred  years, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Confessor,  were  foreigners, — 
Danes,  Normans,  and  Angevins, — and  to  many  it  seemed 
that  the  England  of  Egbert  and  Alfred  was  dead  and 
buried  with  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

ENGLAND  AFTER  THE  NORMAN  CONQUEST. 

IN  treating  of  English  history  after  the  Norman  con- 
quest the  field  before  us  is  so  wide,  and  the  era  is  so 
marked  by  events  of  permanent  interest,  that  I  am  some- 
what embarrassed  in  the  choice  of  topics  for  discussioi, 
I  can  select  only  those  which  seem  of  conspicuous  im- 
portance, and  which  are  generally  recognized  as  forming 
landmarks  in  English  history,  my  purpose  being  chiefly 
to  direct  attention  to  the  subjects  which  ought  to  be 
studied,  and  to  suggest  in  what  way  and  with  reference 
to  what  historical  relations  they  should  be  investigated. 

For  the  sake  of  method,  I  shall  discuss  the  great  events 
in  English  history  after  the  Norman  conquest,  as  they 
appear  to  have  affected  the  national  life  and  growth, 
in  four  distinct  ways :  1,  as  they  illustrate  the  develop- 
ment of  the  political  constitution  of  the  country  in  the 
direction  of  freedom  and  self-government ;  2,  as  affect- 
ing the  relations  of  Church  and  State  in  that  country 
during  the  Middle  Age ;  3,  as  showing  the  general  de- 
velopment of  the  social  life  of  that  period ;  and,  4,  as 
controlling  the  foreign  and  external  policy  of  England 
under  the  Norman  and  Angevin  or  Plantagenet  kings. 

The  Norman  conquest  was  not  probably  intended  by 

William  in  the  beginning  to  produce  so  radical  a  change 

19  217 


218  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

in  the  relations  of  the  governors  and  governed  as  he 
afterwards  found  necessary  to  make  in  order  to  consoli- 
date his  dominion.  He  claimed  that  he  had  a  true  title 
to  the  crown  independent  of  any  military  conquest  of 
the  country,  for  he  had  been  designated  by  Edward  the 
Confessor  as  his  successor,  he  had  been  recognized  after 
the  battle  of  Hastings  by  the  witan  as  king,  and  had 
been  duly  crowned  as  such  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury. But  these  claims  were  not  regarded  as  valid  by  a 
very  large  portion  of  the  population  of  the  northern  and 
western  portions  of  England :  they  broke  out  in  a  fierce 
revolt  against  his  authority,  which  he  maintained  with 
overpowering  force  and  cruelty.  It  was  this  revolt, 
probably,  which  settled  the  Conqueror's  method  of  gov- 
erning the  country,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  a  system 
which,  changed  as  it  has  become  by  the  necessities  of  the 
time  through  a  succession  of  ages,  still  retains  unmis- 
takable marks  of  its  Norman  and  feudal  origin. 

The  possession  of  land  was,  as  will  be  understood,  the 
essential  mark  and  guarantee  of  power  during  the  Middle 
Age  throughout  Europe.  The  first  step  in  William's  re- 
organization of  the  country  was  the  transfer  of  the  land 
from  the  Saxon  nobles  to  his  Norman  followers.  In 
doing  this,  he  adopted,  with  certain  modifications,  the 
feudal  principle  which  then  prevailed  universally  in  the 
Teutonic  conquests  in  Europe.  But  he  seems  to  have 
been  fully  impressed  with  the  defects  in  the  feudal  tenures 
as  they  had  been  developed  on  the  Continent,  in  France 
especially,  where  the  great  vassals  with  large  fiefs  had 


THE  FIEFS  CONFERRED  B  Y  THE  CONQUEROR.  219 

made  themselves  practically  independent  of  the  crown, 
reducing  the  king,  as  I  have  elsewhere  shown,  to  the 
position  of  a  merely  nominal  ruler  in  his  own  dominions. 
The  Conqueror,  therefore,  in  conferring  fiefs  in  England, 
provided  not  merely  that  the  donees — his  tenants  in  capite, 
as  they  were  called — should  swear  allegiance,  yield 
military  service  to  him,  and  hold  their  estates  of  him 
personally,  as  was  the  case  elsewhere,  but  also  that  all 
the  sub-tenants -of  these  great  feudatories  should  come 
under  similar  obligations  to  the  king,  as  paramount  lord 
to  their  own  chiefs;  and  this  was  made  an  essential  con- 
dition of  the  tenure  of  their  estates  by  his  followers. 
Not  only  this,  but,  with  the  view  of  still  further  lessening 
that  power  of  the  great  nobles  which  had  been  employed 
on  the  Continent  to  embarrass  and  weaken  the  king's 
authority,  he  conferred  on  the  same  person  fiefs  and 
manors  in  widely  distant  parts  of  the  country,  so  as  to 
avoid  the  creation  of  duchies  or  lordships  embracing  a 
large  adjacent  territory  held  by  the  same  person  or 
family.  In  order  more  fully  to  render  himself  absolute 
master,  he  maintained  the  old  Saxon  plan  of  appointing 
sheriffs  and  of  organizing  courts  for  each  county,  thus 
reducing  the  local  power  and  influence  of  the  great  land- 
owners to  harmless  proportions.  His  object  was  further 
accomplished  by  abolishing  the  Saxon  division  of  the 
country  into  great  provinces  with  a  great  noble  at  the 
head  of  each.  He  substituted  therefor  the  smaller  di- 
vision of  counties. 

No  one  in  history  seems  to  have  understood   more 


220  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

clearly  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  the  feudal 
system  than  William  the  Conqueror.  His  object  was  to 
rule  absolutely,  and  yet  to  make  his  followers,  who  had 
aided  him  in  acquiring  the  country,  satisfied, — to  restrain 
every  form  of  rapine  and  plunder  except  his  own,  and 
to  maintain  in  his  pay  and  under  his  control  a  force 
sufficiently  large  and  powerful  to  keep  his  own  com- 
panions and  friends  from  undue  violence.  He  did  all 
this  with  extraordinary  sagacity  and  with  such  materials 
as  he  had  at  hand,  and  he  succeeded  as  no  one  on  the 
Continent  since  Charlemagne  had  done.  In  no  ruler  was 
the  Norman  instinct  of  order,  organization,  and  discipline 
so  conspicuous.  He  completed  his  system  by  causing  an 
accurate  survey  and  census  of  the  inhabitants  and  their 
possessions  to  be  taken.  These  were  compiled  in  the 
celebrated  Domesday-Book,  so  that  he  and  his  successors 
were  able  to  ascertain  fully  the  resources  at  any  time  at 
their  disposal.  His  rule  was  essentially  military,  harsh, 
and  cruel,  as  was  necessary  to  govern  the  rough  ad- 
venturers who  had  followed  him,  and  the  half-subdued 
natives,  but  it  at  least  secured  the  first  element  of  all 
good  government, — viz.,  public  order. 

His  sons,  especially  Henry  Beauclerc,  had  the  same 
Norman  instincts.  Under  him  the  Great  Council  of  the 
Realm,  composed  of  the  greater  nobles  and  prelates,  was 
divided  into  several  committees  or  courts,  each  with  a 
distinct  function, — one  to  revise  and  register  the  laws, 
one  to  assess  and  collect  the  revenue,  another  forming  a 
court  of  appeal ;  and  in  a  certain  measure  this  form  of 


RULE   OF  THE  NORMAN  KINGS.  221 

organization  continues  in  England  at  the  present  day. 
The  great  object  of  the  Norman  and  the  Angevin  kings 
seems  to  have  been  to  depress  the  power  of  the  baronage 
while  making  use  of  their  military  power.  "With  this 
object  in  view,  they  granted  important  privileges  to  the 
towns  on  the  royal  demesne  or  king's  private  estates,  a 
concession  which  removed  them  entirely  from  the  juris- 
diction of  the  feudal  courts.  Nothing  is  more  striking 
as  an  illustration  of  how  far  the  power  of  the  nobles 
was  curtailed  in  comparison  with  that  of  the  same  class 
on  the  Continent  at  the  same  time,  than  that  Stephen, 
legally,  of  course,  a  usurper,  reigned  as  king  simply 
because  he  was  supported  by  the  city  of  London,  and 
that  the  negotiation  by  which  the  crown  was  to  go  on 
his  death  to  Henry's  grandson  was  successfully  carried 
out  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  was  not  the 
work  of  the  baronage. 

Henry  II.  continued  the  task  of  reducing  the  feudal 
importance  of  the  barons,  and  while,  unquestionably, 
by  so  doing  he  increased  the  royal  power,  he  also,  per- 
haps unwittingly,  improved  the  condition  and  confirmed 
the  political  rights  of  the  bourgeoisie.  He  commuted  the 
knights'  personal  service  into  seutage,  a  tax  payable  in 
money ;  and  this  enabled  him  to  dispense  with  the  mili- 
tary aid  of  the  barons  and  their  feudal  retainers  when- 
ever he  thought  proper  to  do  so.  He  could  either  hire, 
with  the  money  produced  by  it,  mercenary  troops,  or 
call  out  a  general  levy  of  the  population  and  arm  them. 

To  him,  and  not  to  King  Alfred,  belongs  the  honor  of 

19* 


222  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

having  established  the  trial  by  grand  jury  and  petit  jury 
in  criminal  cases  as  it  is  now  known  and  practised  by 
all  English-speaking  nations.  Moreover,  he  established, 
on  a  basis  which  has  never  been  shaken,  a  system  of 
courts  in  which  the  same  uniform  law  of  the  land  was 
administered  to  every  subject  of  the  crown  by  judges  ap- 
pointed by  the  king,  who  made  circuits  of  the  country 
for  that  purpose.  This,  as  may  be  remembered,  was  in 
striking  contrast  to  the  system  prevailing  in  France  and 
Germany  at  the  same  period  and  until  long  after,  where 
each  grand  vassal  within  his  own  fief  was  sovereign  not 
only  in  the  enactment  of  the  law  but  in  its  administra- 
tion also.  He  was  both  law-giver  and  judge. 

Of  Henry  II.'s  two  sons,  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  and 
John,  the  latter  was  the  more  reckless  and  cruel.  The 
former  was  a  Crusader,  the  chief  of  Crusaders,  and  his 
career  and  that  of  his  great  ally  in  the  Holy  Wars,  Philip 
Augustus,  may  be  studied  with  advantage  by  those  who 
wish  to  know  how  far  the  moral  enthusiasm  which  led 
the  higher  princes  of  Europe  to  embark  in  these  expe- 
ditions was  deep  and  real.  John  was  a  perfidious  traitor 
from  the  beginning, — false  to  his  father,  to  his  brother, 
and  to  his  nephew,  Arthur,  the  son  of  his  elder  brother 
Geoffrey.  In  certain  of  the  Norman  possessions  of  the 
Kings  of  England,  Arthur  was  recognized  as  the  true 
heir;  but  John,  assailing  the  army  which  maintained 
his  nephew's  pretensions  in  France,  defeated  it,  cap- 
tured the  prince,  and  was  accused  among  his  contem- 
poraries of  having  assassinated  him.  The  result  was 


EMBARRASSMENTS  OF  KING    JOHN.       223 

the  forfeiture  of  his  fief  to  the  French  king,  the  capture 
of  Normandy  and  of  all  the  other  English  possessions 
in  France ;  and  at  that  time  they  exceeded  in  territorial 
extent  that  portion  of  modern  France  then  held  by  its 
nominal  king.  But  John,  with  all  the  bad  qualities  of 
his  race,  had  its  courage  and  its  tenacious  spirit,  and  he 
called  upon  the  barons  and  prelates  of  his  kingdom  for 
aid  to  enable  him  to  regain  his  Continental  possessions. 
They  declined,  on  the  ground  that  the  tenures  by  which 
they  held  their  estates  did  not  compel  them  to  serve  the 
king  outside  the  realm. 

While  thus  struggling,  he  met  with  a  new  embarrass- 
ment, in  the  appointment  of  an  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury by  Pope  Innocent  III.,  in  violation  of  what  he 
claimed  to  be  the  clear  rights  of  his  crown.  On  his 
refusing  to  recognize  the  new  archbishop,  one  Church 
censure  after  another  was  inflicted  upon  him,  until 
finally  he  was  excommunicated  by  the  Pope.  In  those 
days  such  a  sentence  had  a  terrible  significance  and 
power,  especially  in  the  case  of  an  unpopular  king.  By 
it  his  kingdom  was  placed  under  an  interdict,  his  sub- 
jects were  released  from  allegiance  to  him,  he  was  thus 
cut  off  even  from  the  aid  of  his  allies,  and  therefore 
rendered  utterly  powerless  as  a  sovereign.  John's  po- 
sition became  perfectly  desperate  under  such  a  ban. 
He  was  forced  to  bear,  in  addition  to  it,  the  odium  of  the 
loss  of  the  English  possessions  in  France,  and  the  hatred 
and  distrust  of  his  own  nobles,  not  only  as  a  man  but  as 
an  excommunicate  king.  In  this  position  he  decided 


224  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

that  the  best,  perhaps  the  only,  coarse  he  could  take 
was  submission  to  the  Pope,  an  act  which  included  not 
merely  the  recognition  of  the  archbishop  who  had  been 
appointed,  but  an  actual  conveyance  of  his  kingdom  to 
the  Pope,  to  be  held  afterwards  by  him  and  his  succes- 
sors, Kings  of  England,  as  a  fief  of  the  Holy  See,  the 
Pope  thus  becoming  the  overlord,  and  he,  in  due  form, 
his  liege-man.  This  extraordinary  and  desperate  act 
seems  to  have  led  the  nobles  to  look  upon  the  king,  who 
could  thus  barter  away  the  crown  of  England,  with  even 
greater  horror  than  they  had  felt  when  he  was  under  the 
ban  of  excommunication  or  accused  of  the  assassination 
of  Prince  Arthur.  The  result  was  a  determination  on 
their  part  to  extort  from  their  helpless  sovereign  a  con- 
firmation and  guarantee  of  their  claims  to  certain  funda- 
mental rights.  The  king  was  in  no  condition  to  oppose 
any  claims  they  might  make,  so  that  delegates  from  his 
friends  and  from  the  nobles  who  were  encamped  in  battle- 
array  near  by,  in  the  meadows  of  Runnymede,  met  and 
settled  in  one  day — July  15, 1215 — the  provisions  of  that 
celebrated  treaty  known  in  English  history  as  Magna 
Charta,  the  Great  Charter.  Many  of  its  provisions  refer 
only  to  the  feudal  relations  of  the  king  with  the  barons, 
but  others  are  found  there  of  a  more  general  applica- 
tion, probably  through  the  influence  of  the  Archbishop, 
Stephen  Langton,  the  very  man  whose  forced  nomina- 
tion by  the  Pope  had  been  the  immediate  cause  of  the 
rebellion  of  the  barons,  but  who  proved  himself  on  this 
occasion  the  most  strenuous  asserter  of  the  constitutional 


MAGNA    CHARTA.  225 

rights  of  all  Englishmen.  The  provisions  concerning 
the  rights  of  the  people  in  Magna  Charta  have  made 
it  the  most  memorable  declaration  of  the  principles  of 
English  liberty  in  its  history.  Magna  Charta  affirms, 
it  is  said,  nothing  new  of  the  rights  of  Englishmen :  it 
merely  confirms  the  most  important  of  them  in  the  most 
solemn  manner.  Its  fundamental  propositions  concern- 
ing government  are  two,  and  they  have  always  been  re- 
tained in  England,  and  have  been  incorporated  since  in 
the  codes  of  all  English-speaking  people.  1.  As  to  per- 
sonal liberty  and  the  security  of  private  property.  "No 
freeman  shall  be  seized,  imprisoned,  or  dispossessed,  save 
by  the  judgment  of  his  peers  or  the  law  of  the  laud." 
2.  As  to  taxation.  "No  scutage  or  aid  shall  be  imposed 
in  our  realm  save  by  the  Common  Council"  (i.e.,  Par- 
liament) "of  the  realm."  Magna  Charta  was  not  only 
a  great  charter,  but  has  proved  a  common  charter  for 
all  classes  of  the  English  people  for  all  time.  Many 
attempts  were  made  by  the  Plantagenet  kings  to  evade 
its  provisions.  Henry  III.,  in  his  confirmation  of 
Magna  Charta,  omitted  the  prohibition  contained  in  it 
in  regard  to  levying  scutages,  but  he  did  not  exact 
them.  It  was  declared  no  less  than  thirty-eight  times  in 
eighty  years  the  fundamental  law  of  the  kingdom,  and 
Edward  I.  (1297),  according  to  Hallam,  ratified  so  fully 
its  provisions  as  "  to  give  the  same  security  to  private 
property  as  had  been  given  to  personal  liberty." 

The   next   most    important   development   of   politi- 
cal life  in  England  was  the  provision  for  some  proper 


226  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

representation  in  Parliament  of  the  lesser  baronage 
(who  may  be  considered  the  representatives  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  thanes)  and  of  the  burgesses  of  the  towns.  It 
was  found  that  the  excellent  provisions  of  Magna 
Charta  could  not  all  be  carried  into  practical  effect, 
because  the  king  and  the  great  barons,  acting  through 
the  Great  Council,  were  not  favorably  disposed  towards 
the  execution  of  some  of  the  most  important  of  them. 
Henry  III.,  son  of  John,  was  a  vainglorious  prince, 
whose  favorites  were  chiefly  foreigners,  and  these  soon 
monopolized  the  most  important  and  lucrative  pasitions 
both  in  Church  and  State.  They  were  guilty  of  all 
manner  of  illegal  exactions,  if  Magna  Charta  was  to 
be  regarded  as  the  standard  of  the  law.  The  charter, 
since  it  was  granted,  had  been  confirmed  by  frequent 
oaths,  but  its  provisions  were  in  practice  often  dis- 
regarded, and  the  resentment  of  the  barons  expressed 
itself  in  a  determined  protest  against  these  violations 
of  the  law,  and  in  a  refusal  of  further  subsidies.  The 
remedy  was  felt  to  lie  in  providing  some  sort  of  repre- 
sentation of  the  commonalty  in  the  government  of  the 
kingdom.  It  was  first  proposed  that  the  commons,  the 
lesser  baronage,  and  the  freeholders  should  elect  "  twelve 
honest  men"  who  should  come  to  the  Parliament  when 
the  king  and  the  council  sent  for  them  to  treat  of  the 
wants  of  the  king  and  his  kingdom.  It  is  to  be  noted 
that  the  proclamation  which  ordered  the  observance  of 
these  and  the  like  provisions  adopted  at  Oxford  was 
the  first  royal  proclamation  ever  issued  in  the  English 


SIMON  DE  MONTFORT.  227 

language,  which  is  very  significant  as  showing  to  which 
race  the  power  of  the  State  was  then  passing. 

These  measures  caused  great  irritation  among  the 
higher  nobles  and  the  royal  foreign  favorites.  They 
were  set  aside  by  Louis,  King  of  France,  to  whose 
arbitrament  they  had  been,  strange  to  say,  submitted. 
There  was  nothing  left  to  the  leader  of  the  reform 
movement,  Simon  de  Montfort,  but  an  appeal  against 
the  king  by  arms.  He  was  speedily  deserted  by  the 
barons  who  had  urged  him  on ;  but,  strong  in  the  sup- 
port of  the  towns,  he  led  an  army  against  the  king, 
in  which  were  arrayed  fifteen  thousand  Londoners.  He 
gained  the  great  victory  of  Lewes  in  1264,  and  was 
placed  at  the  head  of  the  State.  True  to  his  convictions 
that  the  remedy  for  the  evils  which  afflicted  the  king- 
dom was  *o  be  found  in  a  representation  of  the  towns, 
he  summoned  a  Parliament  to  which  every  borough  was 
invited  to  send  two  representatives.  In  the  previous 
reign,  and  even  in  that  of  Henry,  two  knights  of  the 
shire  had  been  summoned  by  the  king  to  Parliament  as 
representatives  of  the  lesser  baronage ;  but  it  was  Simon 
de  Montfort,  the  foreigner,  the  son  of  the  detested 
leader  of  the  crusade  against  the  Albigenses,  who  first 
invited  the  merchant  and  the  trader  to  sit  beside  the 
knight  of  the  shire,  the  baron,  and  the  bishop  in  the 
Parliament  of  the  realm.  He  may  well  be  called  the 
founder  of  the  English  House  of  Commons.  The  or- 
ganization which  he  framed  continues,  at  least  in  form 
and  name,  to  the  present  day,  although  in  the  reign 


228  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

of  Henry  VI.  the  burgesses  and  the  freeholders  in 
the  counties,  who  had  all  previously  had  the  right  to 
vote  for  members  of  Parliament,  were  debarred  from 
that  privilege  unless  they  possessed  a  yearly  revenue  of 
forty  shillings  per  annum.  This  latter  provision  elimi- 
nated the  popular  element  which  it  was  designed  origi- 
nally to  introduce  into  Parliament,  and  has  made  the 
House  of  Commons  ever  since  the  representative  of  the 
property  classes  in  the  kingdom,  both  in  trade  and  land, 
and,  therefore,  steady  and  conservative  in  its  tone  and 
indisposed  to  sudden  radical  changes  by  yielding  to  the 
popular  feeling  of  the  day. 

The  relations  of  the  religious  belief  of  the  English 
people  to  their  duties  as  subjects  of  the  king — in  other 
words,  the  growth,  after  the  Conquest,  of  the  strange 
dualism  of  Church  and  State — gave  rise  to  some  of  the 
most  memorable  events  in  English  history ;  and  it  is  im- 
possible to  understand  English  life  or  English  character 
without  some  study  of  this  subject.  It  presents  itself 
during  the  medieval  age  as  a  constant  struggle  turn- 
ing upon  a  question  of  divided  allegiance.  It  was  not 
merely  a  question  whether,  in  a  given  case,  obedience 
was  due  to  the  Church  or  the  State,  both  claiming  to 
be  supreme  powers  within  the  realm  ;  but  also  whether, 
in  case  of  a  collision  of  these  powers,  the  supreme  ar- 
biter should  be  the  king  and  the  laws  of  the  nation,  or 
the  Pope.  Bitter  disputes  and  much  bloodshed  grew 
out  of  honest  differences  of  opinion  on  these  subjects. 

The  Norman  conquest  made,  of  course,  changes  in 


THE   CONQUEROR  AND   THE  CHURCH.    229 

the  details  of  the  government  of  the  Church  in  Eng- 
land. The  Saxon  bishops  were  dispossessed,  one  by  one, 
in  consequence  of  alleged  delinquencies,  and  Norman 
prelates,  generally  of  high  character  and  great  learn- 
ing, were  substituted  for  them.  Lanfranc,  a  man  of 
the  greatest  reputation  for  ability,  abbot  of  the  famous 
monastery  of  Bee,  in  Normandy,  was  made  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury.  He  gave  a  third  of  his  revenue  to  the 
poor,  worked  hard  on  a  revised  text  of  the  Scriptures, 
and  shocked  the  prejudices  of  the  vulgar  by  expur- 
gating from  the  English  calendar  names  of  saints  dear 
to  the  natives,  but  not  accredited  on  the  Continent.  The 
new  dignitaries  in  the  Church,  as  well  as  in  the  State, 
were,  of  course,  all  Normans,  and  the  differences  of  lan- 
guage and  of  race  removed  them  necessarily  far  from 
their  flocks.  The  Conqueror  was  disposed  to  curtail 
that  practice  of  the  interference  by  the  clergy  with  civil 
aifairs,  with  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  system  had  been 
thoroughly  interpenetrated,  but  he  desired  to  be  on  good 
terms  with  the  Pope,  who  had  blessed  his  expedition. 
When  that  Pope,  however,  who  was  no  other  than  the 
celebrated  Hildebrand,  Gregory  "VII.,  intimated  that 
fealty — that  is,  homage  made  sacred  by  an  oath — was 
due  to  him  from  the  king  for  his  crown,  he  was  roughly 
answered  that  he  would  submit  to  nothing  of  the  kind, 
as  his  predecessors  had  refused  to  recognize  any  such 
claim.  The  Pope,  who  found  that  he  had  quite  a  dif- 
ferent prince  to  deal  with  from  the  abject  penitent 

Henry  IV.  at  Canossa,  allowed  the  matter  to  drop. 

20 


230  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

In  William's  policy  towards  the  Church  we  see  the 
germ  of  that  State  supremacy  asserted  four  centuries 
later  by  Henry  VIII.  He  took  upon  himself  to  decide 
which  of  two  rival  Popes  his  clergy  should  recognize. 
He  insisted  that  they  should  not,  in  council,  adopt  any 
canons  which  the  king  had  not  recommended  or  ap- 
proved ;  and  he  prohibited  the  excommunication  of  any 
one  of  his  chief  tenants,  no  matter  what  might  have 
been  his  crime,  unless  the  censure  was  inflicted  by  the 
special  permission  of  the  king.  When  we  remember 
how  absolute  had  been  the  control  of  the  Church  pre- 
viously over  the  wills,  the  consciences,  and  the  habits 
of  men,  we  can  form  some  conception  of  the  effect  pro- 
duced by  these  innovations.  But  the  influence  and 
power  of  the  clergy  were  not  to  be  thus  overthrown. 
From  the  beginning,  the  Norman  kings  tried  to  draw 
the  line  between  the  citizen  and  the  priest,  to  bring 
England  into  connection  with  the  rest  of  Europe  and  the 
Roman  law  by  a  reasonable  submission  to  the  Roman 
See,  and  yet  keep  her  free  from  foreign  control  in  her 
policy,  both  in  the  Church  and  State.  Notwithstanding 
this  constant  uniform  policy,  the  clergy  lost  no  oppor- 
tunity of  asserting  claims  which  we  should  deem  very 
extravagant  had  they  not  been  recognized  as  valid  by 
the  sovereigns  of  many  of  the  other  countries  of  Europe 
during  the  mediaeval  era.  Thus,  Ansel  in,  the  mildest 
and  meekest  of  monks  before  he  became  the  successor 
of  his  old  teacher,  Lanfranc,  as  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, tried  to  renew  in  England  the  old  quarrel  of  the 


POLICY  OF  THE   CHURCH.  231 

Investitures,  which  had  been  the  source  of  so  much 
humiliation  in  Germany,  involving  the  claim  of  the 
sovereign  to  invest  the  bishops  with  the  episcopal  office, 
as  well  as  with  the  estates  annexed  to  it,  by  the  symbol- 
ical delivery  of  the  ring  and  crosier.  Then,  again,  we 
find  Thomas  Becket  persisting  in  his  denial  of  the  juris- 
diction of  the  civil  courts  over  ecclesiastical  persons, 
until  his  obstinacy  caused  his  assassination.  And  so  in 
the  next  reign  we  find  King  John  forced  to  submit  to 
the  Pope,  who  had  excommunicated  him,  and,  as  a 
proof  of  his  sincerity,  agreeing,  as  we  have  said,  to  hold 
his  kingdom  as  a  fief  of  the  Holy  See,  because  he  found 
that  discontented  barons  could  defy  without  danger  an 
excommunicated  king.  On  the  other  hand,  we  find  the 
Archbishop,  Theobald,  saving  the  country  from  a  bloody 
war  of  succession  by  exerting  a  power  which  was  strong 
enough  to  induce  the  most  powerful  of  the  nobles  to 
consent  to  the  succession  of  Stephen ;  and  the  most 
prominent  and  noblest  figure,  as  I  have  said,  among 
those  who  extorted  Magna  Charta  from  King  John 
was  that  very  Archbishop  Langton  whose  appointment 
by  the  Pope  had  begun  the  troubles  of  the  reign. 

The  great  bishops  of  the  Middle  Age  in  England, 
especially  under  the  Norman  kings,  were  statesmen 
rather  than  Churchmen,  as  we  now  apply  that  term ; 
but  we  must  remember  always  that  their  statesmanship 
controlled  through  the  machinery  of  the  Church  a  vast 
variety  of  influences  which  now  reach  society  by  other 
channels.  The  ordinary  parish  priest,  or  mass  priest 


232  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

as  he  was  called,  held  a  very  inferior  position  ;  he  was 
often  a  man  of  very  loose  character  and  set  a  bad  ex- 
ample. There  were  many  foreigners  who  held  prefer- 
ment in  the  Church  who  never  lived  in  England,  and 
who  were  specially  hated  by  the  people  because  they  were 
non-residents.  Large  sums  of  money  were  annually 
sent  to  Rome  as  Church  dues, — another  subject  of  con- 
stant complaint.  The  canons  and  the  monks  formed  the 
most  respectable  and  influential  portion  of  the  clerical 
body.  They  would  not  perhaps,  at  the  present  day, 
be  regarded  as  model  Churchmen.  Many  of  them  had 
grown  rich,  and  therefore  lazy ;  yet  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  they  did  much  good  in  their  day.  Not  to  speak 
more  highly  than  one  ought  to  do  of  the  value  of  indis- 
criminate almsgiving  by  the  monasteries,  yet  it  had  in 
those  days  its  obvious  uses.  There  can  be  no  doubt, 
either,  that  monks  were  improving  landlords,  and  con- 
cerned themselves  with  cattle  and  crops,  and  with 
maintaining  large  reserve  granaries  of  food  against 
the  frequent  famines,  at  a  time  when  the  nobles  cared 
more  to  raise  men-at-arms  than  to  give  their  attention 
to  such  matters. 

The  Church  became  too,  in  those  days,  another  name 
for  the  home  of  the  learned  professions.  It  was  open 
to  every  promising  aspirant,  and  men  who  afterwards 
became  architects,  painters,  historians,  and  philosophers 
escaped  from  the  plough  or  the  service  of  arms  by  min- 
istering at  the  altar.  The  Church  and  its  worship  be- 
came dear  to  the  people  as  part  of  their  daily  life ;  and 


DOMINICANS  AND  FRANCISCANS.         233 

yet  there  was  no  blindness  to  its  many  abuses.  There 
was  always  an  extreme  jealousy  of  the  interference  of  for- 
eigners especially,  and  even  of  the  authority  of  the  Pope 
himself,  when  he  asserted  his  claims  upon  its  revenues. 
This  feeling  found  expression  in  two  celebrated  statutes, 
the  one  passed  in  1351,  the  Statute  of  Provisors,  which 
forbade  the  disposal  of  clerical  livings  in  England  by 
the  Pope,  the  other  passed  in  1353,  called  the  Statute  of 
Prcemunire,  which  prohibited  the  publication  of  papal 
bulls  in  England.  The  penalties  provided  for  the  of- 
fences prohibited  by  these  statutes  were  very  severe. 

The  Dominican  friars,  whose  special  function  was 
public  preaching,  and  the  Franciscans,  whose  business  it 
was  to  care  for  the  poor, — duties  which  had  been  much 
neglected  by  the  ordinary  priesthood, — seemed  peculiarly 
fitted  to  revive  the  spiritual  deadness  of  the  Church  and 
to  restore  the  waning  affection  of  the  people.  They  were 
established  in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and 
when  they  began  their  work  in  England  they  were  most 
warmly  welcomed,  by  the  common  people  particularly, 
who  have  always  been  very  earnest  in  their  religious 
convictions,  whatever  they  may  have  been.  These  friars 
did  a  most  important  work  there,  especially  among  the 
inhabitants  of  the  towns.  Their  poverty,  self-denial, 
and  devotion  to  duty  kept  alive  the  religious  sentiment, 
at  the  same  time  that  it  inspired  the  people  with  a  bitter 
opposition  and  hatred  to  the  official  clergy, — the  well- 
endowed  monks  and  parish  priests, — who  were  conspic- 
uous by  contrast  for  a  want  of  zeal  in  their  work. 

20* 


234  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

This  feeling  increased  as  years  went  on,  and  prevailed 
indeed  long  after  the  mendicant  friars  had  become 
merely  impudent  beggars  and  as  careless  of  their  proper 
duties  as  the  monks  and  parish  clergy  had  formerly  been. 

There  seems  to  have  been  a  general  feeling  of  discon- 
tent in  England  during  the  fourteenth  century  among 
the  commonalty,  arising  from  a  variety  of  causes.  Be- 
fore it  broke  out  in  a  terrible  social  revolt  against  the 
misgovern ment  of  the  country  and  the  exactions  of  the 
privileged  classes,  it  showed  itself,  as  is  usually  the  case, 
in  murmurings  against  the  abuses  of  the  Church.  John 
Wyclif  was  the  leader  and  representative  of  this  move- 
ment. He  was  not  only  the  earliest  English  Protestant 
in  the  modern  sense,  but  also,  from  the  impulse  he  gave, 
all  the  discontent  of  the  time,  from  whatever  source, 
fell  into  the  channel  of  hostility  to  the  Church.  Hence, 
while  there  was  no  doubt  a  common  resolve  to  substitute 
personal  religion  for  a  blind  obedience  to  ecclesiastical 
authority,  there  was  a  feeling  beneath  it  of  hatred  to 
the  rule  of  foreign  favorites,  and  a  strong  desire  among 
the  discontented  to  gain  greater  influence  in  their  own 
government.  This  was  the  seed  which  produced  not 
only  Lollardy,  but  Wat  Tyler's  Rebellion  and  the 
Peasants'  Revolt,  thus  making  Wyclif 's  attempt  at  re- 
forming the  Church  a  precursor  of  changes  affecting 
the  whole  social  and  political  condition  of  the  country. 

The  relations  of  England  to  her  possessions  in  France 
during  the  rule  of  the  Norman  and  Plantagenet  kings 
caused  always  much  embarrassment  in  the  government 


ENGLISH  POSSESSIONS  IN  FRANCE.       235 

of  the  country.  Their  territorial  extent  was  great,  em- 
bracing the  larger  half  of  modern  France,  and  they  were 
made  up  of  different  provinces,  each  with  a  distinct  gov- 
ernment of  its  own,  and  all  unlike  that  of  England. 
The  king's  possessions  in  France  embraced  Normandy 
and  Maine,  the  original  lands  of  the  Conqueror,  Anjoti 
and  Touraine,  the  inheritance  of  the  Plantagenets,  and 
Aquitaine  or  Guieune,  the  province  brought  to  Henry  II. 
as  a  dowry  when  he  married  Eleanor,  the  divorced  wife 
of  Louis  VII.  To  these  must  be  added  the  claim  of 
Edward  III.  to  the  whole  of  France  as  the  descendant, 
through  his  mother,  of  Philip  IV.  Every  one  of  these 
claims  to  territory  in  France  was  disputed  at  different 
times  by  the  rulers  of  that  country,  and  the  English 
kings  were  forced  to  defend  their  title  to  them  during 
nearly  four  centuries  with  English  blood,  and  with  Eng- 
lish treasure.  Their  nominal  sovereignty  over  them 
brought  little  else  to  the  English  people  save  abundant 
harvests  of  glory  reaped  upon  such  fields  as  Crecy, 
Poitiers,  and  Azincour.  This  was  a  product  which  per- 
haps, after  all,  was  more  valuable  in  permanent  results 
than  it  would  seem  at  first  sight,  for  out  of  it  grew,  in  a 
great  measure,  that  consciousness  of  strength  which  en- 
abled the  English  nation,  in  spite  of  its  kings,  to  main- 
tain firmly  those  political  institutions  which  have  given 
the  race  the  true  mastery  of  the  world.  Yet  while  England 
had  possessions  in  France  she  lacked  true  national  life ; 
she  was  in  a  great  measure  ruled  by  foreigners ;  she  was 
always  comparatively  weak ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 


236  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

that  modern  England,  with  its  marvellous  power,  begins 
to  date  from  the  close  of  the  hundred-years'  war  which 
severed  her  connection  with  France.  While  that  con- 
nection lasted,  the  policy  of  England  was  in  a  great 
measure  determined  by  the  unnatural  position  (if  I  may 
use  such  an  expression)  which  she  occupied  on  the  Con- 
tinent. Her  kings,  down  at  least  to  the  time  of  Ed- 
ward I.,  thought  they  best  increased  their  power  by 
acquiring  new  provinces  outside  of  England,  and  the 
English  policy  was  determined  not  so  much  with  a  view 
of  providing  for  her  own  wants  and  developing  her 
resources  as  for  securing  these  foreign  conquests.  Per- 
haps anything  in  that  day  which  weakened  the  power  of 
the  Norman  and  Plantagenet  kings  indirectly  strength- 
ened the  true  foundations  of  English  liberty.  A  curious 
illustration  of  this  is  found  in  the  effect  on  the  nation  of 
the  loss  of  Normandy  by  King  John,  and  of  his  other 
military  disasters.  Had  he  succeeded  in  recovering  Nor- 
mandy and  in  defeating  the  French  at  Bouvines,  he 
would  have  been  too  strong  for  his  nobles  when  they 
sought  to  extort  Magna  Charta  from  him ;  but  he  failed 
in  his  schemes,  and  the  victories  of  the  French  thus 
became,  strange  to  say,  one  of  the  most  important  con- 
ditions for  securing  the  great  charter  of  English  liberty. 
In  trying  to  form  some  picture  of  Anglo-Norman  life 
we  must  remember  that  the  feudal  system  was  a  graded 
hierarchy,  in  which  each  person  had  a  place  as  well  ascer- 
tained and  settled  as  that  of  soldiers  in  a  regiment.  The 
common  bond  of  obligation  between  these  grades  was 


ANGLO-NORMAN  LIFE.  237 

what  is  technically  called  service,  and  the  grade  or  rank 
of  each  person  was  determined  by  the  nature  of  that  ser- 
vice. Thus,  the  distinction  between  the  gentry  and  the 
mere  freeholders  lay  in  the  service  of  arms,  and  between 
the  freeholders  and  the  villeins  in  this,  that  the  service  of 
the  first  was  fixed  and  invariable,  and  that  of  the  other 
arbitrary  and  at  the  pleasure  of  the  lord.  These  distinc- 
tions penetrated  into  the  very  core  of  Anglo-Norman 
society,  and  would  have  retarded  all  progress  had  it  not 
been  for  the  establishment  of  towns  and  the  necessities  of 
making  changes  which  grew  out  of  their  peculiar  life. 
The  original  town  in  England  seems  to  have  been  a  space 
of  open  country  in  which  people  gathered  together  for 
the  purpose  of  trade,  for  the  supply  of  the  camp  of  some 
Roman  legion  or  the  wants  of  some  neighboring  abbey  or 
castle.  These  towns  alone  possessed  the  money  gained  by 
trade  which  the  English  kings  so  often  needed  to  subdue 
the  turbulent  barons  or  to  carry  on  their  foreign  wars. 
Those  on  the  royal  demesne — that  is,  those  which  were 
on  the  king's  private  lands — soon  gained  for  their  in- 
habitants the  right  of  free  speech,  of  maintaining  courts 
within  their  walls,  and  of  meeting  in  arms.  These 
were  rights  purchased  from  the  king;  and  the  vassals 
dependent  on  abbeys  and  castles  soon  after  secured  their 
freedom  from  feudal  services  in  the  same  way. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  inhabitants  of 
these  towns  were  free  in  our  modern  sense.  Each  of 
the  classes  composing  the  citizens  was  bound  to  the  other 
by  a  system  of  mutual  assurance  of  each  other's  good 


238  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

conduct.  This  was  the  development  of  the  system  of 
frank-pledge,  which  in  Saxon  times,  as  I  have  said, 
made  each  political  division  of  the  country  responsible 
for  the  good  conduct  of  all  of  its  inhabitants.  Nomi- 
nally, in  the  towns  at  least,  people  were  free  to  talk 
and  free  to  trade,  even  free  to  bear  arms  at  certain  times ; 
but  practically  this  did  not  mean  what  it  might  do  now. 
"  Every  town  and  village,"  says  a  learned  historian, 
"  was  bail  for  its  inhabitants,  as  every  lord  was  for  his 
vassals.  A  strange  comer  in  a  village,  who  was  neither 
armed,  nor  rich,  nor  a  clerk,  must  enter  and  leave  his 
host's  house  by  daylight ;  and  even  then  he  could  not 
be  harbored  more  than  a  night  out  of  his  own  tithing. 
Twice  a  year  the  county  court  held  a  visitation  to 
ascertain  whether  any  fugitive  serfs  were  within  its 
jurisdiction.  The  best  chance  for  a  runaway  was  to 
take  refuge  in  a  town ;  the  laws  would  protect  his  life 
and  property;  but  if  he  had  not  the  city  franchise, 
or  was  not  a  member  of  some  guild,  his  position  was 
terribly  at  the  mercy  of  chance.  Fire,  sickness,  pov- 
erty, might  ruin  him  beyond  hope.  It  was  this  class, 
accordingly,  that  were  the  great  social  evil  of  the  times, 
the  lazars  and  the  lepers,  who  died  like  flies  in  a  time 
of  pestilence,  and  as  their  true  representatives  and  suc- 
cessors, the  tramps,  do  at  this  day, — the  canaille  whom 
the  knights  and  burghers  trod  down  pitilessly."  This 
is  a  dark  picture  of  the  social  condition  of  the  landless 
villeins  of  the  thirteenth  century,  all  the  darker  when 
we  reflect  that  in  those  days  three  out  of  every  five 


THE   TOWNS  AND    THE  GILDES.  239 

Englishmen  belonged  to  this  class.  Many  of  these 
towns  became  powerful  from  the  riches  derived  from 
their  trade  and  manufactures,  and  in  them,  in  the  pur- 
suit of  gain,  no  doubt  the  distinction  between  the  Nor- 
ma'n  and  Saxon  became  lost,  the  English  language  and 
the  English  customary  law  being  the  natural  outgrowth 
of  the  English  race  which  was  dominant  in  them. 

The  municipal  government  of  these  towns,  when  they 
became  free  from  feudal  services,  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  burghers,  as  they  were  called,  each  burgher  deriving 
his  right  to  share  in  the  rule  from  his  membership  in 
one  of  the  trade-gildes  within  the  town.  These  gildes 
were  composed  in  the  beginning  of  those  engaged  in  the 
principal  trades  or  manufactures  carried  on  within  the 
town,  and  the  increase  of  their  number  was  jealously 
guarded  by  the  burghers,  so  that  the  municipal  power 
might  remain  in  the  hands  of  the  representatives  of  a 
few  trades.  But  as  the  towns  prospered,  and  other  forms 
of  industry  grew  up,  those  concerned  in  them,  dissatis- 
fied with  the  oligarchical  government  of  the  original 
burghers,  desired  to  organize  new  gildes,  representing 
new  trades  or  occupations,  so  that  they  might  share  in 
the  government  of  the  town.  These  new  gildes  were 
known  as  craft-gildes,  and  the  struggle  between  them 
and  those  before  established,  known  as  merchant  gildes, 
was  carried  on  with  intense  bitterness  in  many  of  these 
towns  during  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries.  The 
result  was,  in  the  end,  a  civic  revolution,  by  which  all 
the  gildes  throughout  the  kingdom,  whether  merchant 


240  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

or  craft,  gained  an  equal  share  in  the  municipal  gov- 
ernment. But  this  peculiar  feature  remained  in  Eng- 
land, as  it  did  on  the  Continent,  for  ages,  in  towns 
that  had  been  made  free  from  feudal  servitude,  that  the 
inhabitants  as  such  who  did  not  belong  to  the  burgh'er 
class  were  not  represented  either  in  the  government  of 
the  city  or  in  the  General  Council  or  Parliament  of  the 
kingdom.  Thus  it  would  appear  that,  much  as  the  towns 
did  for  their  own  emancipation  from  feudal  tyranny, 
the  rule  of  the  burgher  aristocracy  which  was  substituted 
for  it  gave  no  share  in  the  government,  either  local  or 
general,  to  the  mass  of  the  population  within  them,  and 
perpetuated  many  evils  which  were  almost  as  intolerable 
as  those  inflicted  by  the  feudal  tyranny. 

The  parish  or  the  manor — the  administrative  unit,  as 
it  afterwards  became — in  those  days  was  divided  into 
four  portions.  First,  the  lord  of  the  fee,  with  his  feudal 
rights  over  the  whole,  had  a  private  demesne  or  farm, 
which  he  cultivated  by  his  bailiff  or  steward ;  second, 
there  were  small  estates  possessed  by  the  freeholders,  who 
paid  quit-rents  or  ground-rents  to  the  lord  ;  third,  there 
were  the  tenements  and  lands  of  the  villeins, — bordarii  or 
cottarii,  as  they  were  called ;  and,  fourth,  the  waste  or  com- 
mon land,  relic  of  the  earliest  Teutonic  organization,  upon 
which  all  the  tenants  had  the  right  of  pasture.  The 
lands  of  the  villeins  were  legally  held  at  services  ar- 
bitrarily determined  by  the  lord,  but  in  point  of  fact 
these  services  were  generally  commuted  for  a  money  pay- 
ment by  the  tenant  accepted  by  the  lord.  These  customary 


CONDITION  OF  THE  PEOPLE,  241 

payments  in  lieu  of  services  added  very  much  to  the 
income  of  the  lords,  and  they  would  have  looked  upon 
any  project  which  might  deprive  them  of  this  portion 
of  their  revenue  with  alarm.  It  is  curious  to  observe 
that  such  should  have  been  the  actual  relation  of  the 
villeins  to  their  lords  at  the  very  time  when  legally  they 
were  slaves,  and  bound  to  render  to  them  all  their  labor 
without  compensation.  It  is  most  important  also  to 
remember  that  the  social  discontent  in  England  which 
broke  out  in  the  formidable  revolts  of  Wat  Tyler  and 
Jack  Cade  was  not  due  either  to  scarcity  of  food  or  to 
the  reduction  of  the  rate  of  wages.  It  arose  from  the 
attempt  on  the  part  of  these  villeins — copyholders  as 
they  were  called  (because  their  names  were  on  the  roll 
of  the  manor),  but  who  were  legally  slaves — to  establish 
their  right  to  a  pecuniary  commutation  of  the  lord's  claim 
to  their  labor  against  a  threatened  invasion  of  that  custom, 
or,  in  other  words,  from  a  fear  lest  an  effort  should  be 
made  to  revive  the  arbitrary  control  of  the  lord  over 
the  laborer  and  his  work,  which  had  prevailed  before  this 
customary  method  of  commutation  had  been  adopted. 

The  peasant's  house  was  built  of  the  coarsest  material, 
most  frequently  of  wattles  daubed  with  mud  or  clay. 
Bricks  appear  never  to  have  been  used.  The  manor- 
house  was  generally  built  of  stone,  but  the  outbuildings 
were  of  the  meanest  description.  We  who  are  provided 
with  the  modern  conveniences  of  living  can  hardly  un- 
derstand the  privations  of  a  mediaeval  winter,  the  joy 

of  a  medieval  spring,  and  the  glad  thankfulness  of  an 

21 


242  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

abundant  harvest.  Cheap  artificial  light  is  familiar  to 
us,  but  in  the  mediaeval  era  a  pound  of  candles  would 
have  cost  as  much  as  the  day's  wages  of  the  ordinary 
workman :  so  that  we  can  understand  how  the  offering 
of  a  candle  at  the  shrine  of  a  saint  may  have  been  the 
sacrifice  of  a  coveted  personal  enjoyment. 

The  population  of  England  in  the  fourteenth  century 
is  estimated  to  have  been  from  one  and  a  half  to  two 
millions.  It  is  supposed  that  almost  the  same  area  of 
arable  land  was  then  cultivated  as  at  present ;  but  the 
rate  of  production  was  of  course  much  less, — not  more 
than  one-fourth  of  what  it  now  is.  The  condition  of 
things  in  England  as  affecting  the  rate  of  wages  was 
much  changed  in  the  fourteenth  century  by  the  diminu- 
tion of  the  population  caused  by  the  Black  Death.  This 
plague  destroyed  so  many  people  during  the  last  half  of 
that  period  that  we  may  trace  to  its  effect  the  birth  of 
a  new  social  and  industrial  England.  The  ordinary 
operation  of  the  feudal  system  seems  out  of  place  in  the 
presence  of  this  terrible  and  unforeseen  calamity.  We 
enter  in  this  strange  way  upon  the  struggle  of  economic 
natural  forces  against  the  arbitrary  rule  of  the  aristo- 
cratic element.  But  this  is  a  subject  large  enough  for 
future  separate  consideration. 

The  general  obligations  of  a  feudal  vassal  in  England 
were  service  in  council,  in  the  court  of  law,  and  in  the 
field.  He  was  not  bound  by  the  conditions  of  his  tenure 
to  serve  his  lord  out  of  the  kingdom,  and  the  period 
of  his  service  was  usually  settled  at  forty  days  in  each 


ENGLISH  FEUDAL  SERVICES.  243 

year.  The  usual  feudal  incidents,  the  obligation  to  re- 
deem his  lord  from  captivity,  to  contribute  to  the  dowry 
of  his  daughter,  and  to  pay  him  a  certain  sum  when  his 
son  became  a  knight, — reliefs,  as  these  payments  were 
called, — were  commuted  by  Magna  Charta  for  a  sum  of 
money,  about  five  pounds  for  each  knight's  fee.  Gener- 
ally, the  vassal  forfeited  his  fief  if  he  did  not  perform 
the  obligations  annexed  to  it,  or  if  he  made  any  attempt 
on  the  person  or  honor  of  his  lord  or  of  the  members  of 
his  family.  But  these  obligations  were  reciprocal.  The 
lord  was  not  allowed  even  to  raise  a  stick  against  his 
vassal.  Insult,  outrage,  or  the  denial  of  aid  or  justice 
entitled  the  vassal  to  withdraw  his  fief,  that  is,  to  refuse 
service,  and  even  to  declare  war  upon  his  lord.  It  may 
be  that  in  the  practical  administration  of  such  a  system 
injustice  was  often  done.  But  then,  as  now,  the  reason 
was  not  that  such  acts  were  not  prohibited.  The  great 
curse  of  the  time  was  its  over-legality,  and  the  belief  that 
abuses  could  be  rooted  out  by  multiplying  statutes  and 
rules.  Every  relation  in  life  in  those  days  was  looked 
at  in  a  feudal  aspect.  The  knight  not  only  received  and 
held  his  fief  according  to  the  well-settled  feudal  law, 
but  a. woman  was  bound  to  her  husband  by  a  promise 
resembling  an  oath  of  homage.  In  religion,  men  de- 
bated whether  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor  were  each  su- 
preme in  his  own  domain,  each  owing  the  other  service 
for  some  fief  held  of  him,  or  whether  both  held  only  of 
Christ  as  their  suzerain.  In  law,  the  theory  that  the  mon- 
archy was  a  fief  and  the  administration  of  justice  one  of 


244  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

its  necessary  appurtenances  has  stamped  itself  on  all  Eng- 
lish legislation.  Even  the  towns  as  soon  as  they  became 
corporations  were  regarded  as  persons,  with  the  rights 
and  obligations  of  feudal  barons,  and  treated  as  such. 

The  changes  in  the  English  Constitution  which  had 
the  most  permanent  influence  in  the  subsequent  history 
of  the  country  are  those  which  gave  increasing  power 
to  Parliament  at  the  expense  of  the  king's  prerogative, 
or  rather  the  claims  asserted  by  virtue  of  this  preroga- 
tive by  the  Norman  and  Plantagenet  kings,  and  the 
gradual  extinction  of  villenage.  These  great  changes, 
which  have  so  completely  moulded  modern  England, 
took  place  during  and  after  the  reign  of  Edward  III., 
1328,  and  during  that  hundred-years'  quarrel  among  his 
descendants  of  the  houses  of  York  and  Lancaster,  called 
the  War  of  the  Roses.  I  can  only  give  here  a  summary 
of  the  great  work  done  in  that  period. 

During  this  era,  especially  in  the  reign  of  Richard  II. 
and  Henry  IV.,  Parliament  succeeded:  1.  In  estab- 
lishing its  exclusive  right  of  taxation.  This,  as  need  not 
be  said,  was  a  fundamental  question,  not  much  raised 
in  the  earlier  reigns  of  the  Norman  kings,  as  the  public 
expenditure  was  met  by  the  incidents  of  knight's  service, 
and  by  money  raised  by  the  scutage  tax  in  commutation 
thereof,  and  by  the  private  estates  of  the  king  himself. 
It  is  io  be  observed  that  this  exclusive  right  of  taxa- 
tion, as  well  as  nearly  all  the  other  guarantees  of  per- 
sonal liberty  and  the  security  of  property  obtained  in 
this  era,  were  not  purchased,  as  is  usually  said,  by  the 


POWERS  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  COMMONS.  245 

blood  of  Englishmen  too  proud  to  be  slaves.  It  is 
nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  most  of  the  great  measures 
for  securing  the  freedom  of  the  subject  were  literally 
bought  with  money  from  the  kings,  and  that  their  con- 
cessions of  this  kind,  even  Magna  Charta  itself,  were 
grants  made  by  these  kings  in  the  nature  of  a  bargain, 
which  those  who  suffered  duly  paid  for.  So  much  re- 
dress for  so  much  money  was  the  principle  upon  which 
the  business  was  conducted.  2.  Parliament  gained  not 
merely  the  power  of  taxation,  but  also  the  power  to 
direct  for  what  object  the  money  raised  by  taxation 
should  be  expended.  3.  It  insisted,  as  I  have  already 
intimated,  that  its  willingness  to  raise  money  for  the 
king's  service  must  depend  upon  the  redress  by  the  king 
of  the  grievances  (which  were  always  numerous)  of 
which  it  complained. 

The  power  of  dispensing  with  the  execution  of  statutes 
was  a  device  of  the  king  to  free  himself  from  the  con- 
trol of  his  Parliament,  the  exercise  of  which  in  the  days 
of  James  II.  produced  a  revolution,  and  it  seems  to  have 
been  confined  in  the  reigns  of  the  Plantagenets  rather  to 
exempting  individuals  from  penalties  imposed  by  certain 
statutes,  than  to  a  practical  disregard  of  the  law  itself. 
The  last  claim  made  good  during  these  reigns  in  some 
respects  was  the  most  important  of  all,  for  it  was  no 
other  than  the  right  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  im- 
peach the  ministers  of  the  king  for  bad  conduct.  When 
we  remember  the  theory  of  the  English  monarchy  that 

the  king  can  do  no  wrong,  and  that  the  ministers  alone 

21* 


246  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

are  responsible  for  what  is  done,  we  shall  see  the  neces- 
sity not  merely  of  the  existence  of  some  such  power  as 
this,  but  of  its  exercise  on  proper  occasions  by  a  body 
representing  the  public,  as  the  House  of  Commons  does. 
I  have  dwelt  on  these  claims  made  by  the  House  of 
Commons,  not  merely  because  on  this  foundation  rest 
the  great  principles  of  constitutional  liberty  in  England, 
but  also  because  we  in  this  country  have  always  adopted 
these  great  maxims  of  public  liberty  as  fundamental  in 
our  systems  of  government,  and  have  embodied  them  in 
our  national  and  in  all  our  State  constitutions.  They 
are  the  principles  which  have  been  usually  attacked  in 
various  forms  by  the  arbitrary  measures  of  tyrants  in 
England,  and  it  will  be  observed  with  what  a  true  his- 
torical sense  Englishmen  protest  against  their  invasion 
when  they  claim  their  observance,  not  as  self-evident 
political  truths,  but  as  "  the  ancient  and  undoubted 
rights  and  privileges  of  the  people  of  this  realm." 

I  can  say  but  a  few  words  now  on  the  gradual  ex- 
tinction of  villenage  in  England.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  the  villeins  were,  in  the  beginning,  simply  slaves, 
forced  to  work  on  the  estate  of  the  lord  at  his  arbitrary 
discretion.  Their  services,  by  mutual  agreement  with 
the  lord,  were  commuted  for  money  payments,  and  this 
arrangement  became  so  established  a  custom  that  the 
villeins  became,  as  I  have  said,  copyholders,  holding 
their  little  parcels  of  land  by  a  secure  tenure  as  long  as 
they  kept  their  part  of  the  bargain.  In  this  way  many 
villeins  or  serfs  rose  from  the  condition  of  slaves  to  that 


THE  LABOR   QUESTION,  247 

of  free  laborers  or  even  freeholders.  Gradually,  the 
increase  of  the  population,  and  the  frequent  escape  of 
the  villeins  from  the  manors  to  which  they  were  bound 
to  some  town  in  which  residence  for  a  year  made  them 
free  of  their  lords,  converted  many  of  them  into  free 
laborers.  Their  number  was  further  increased  by  the 
necessity  in  which  Edward  III.  during  his  long  reign 
found  himself,  of  selling  to  these  villeins  their  freedom 
for  money  to  enable  him  to  carry  on  his  wars  in  France. 
With  this  new  freedom  came  the  desire  for  higher  wages 
and  a  better  social  position.  This  naturally  brought 
about  a  struggle  between  them  and  the  employers  of 
labor,  for  on  abundance  of  labor  everything  depended. 
Gradually,  by  these  and  other  means,  the  serf  became 
detached  from  the  land  of  the  lord,  and  master  of  him- 
self, and  compulsory  labor  became  less  common. 

The  agricultural  laboring  class  was  fast  growing,  ap- 
parently by  general  tacit  consent,  into  the  condition  of 
free  laborers,  when  their  situation  became  suddenly 
complicated  by  the  unexpected  event  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  the  vast  diminution  of  the  population  caused 
by  the  plague,  or  the  Black  Death,  as  it  was  called, 
about  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century.  Half  the 
population  are  said  to  have  fallen,  in  a  few  years,  vic- 
tims to  this  terrible  disease,  and  one  of  the  results,  of 
course,  would  have  been,  had  natural  economic  forces 
been  permitted  to  have  free  play,  to  raise  the  price  of 
labor  by  diminishing  the  number  of  laborers.  The 
lords,  however,  found  it  impossible  to  pay  the  vastly 


248  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

increased  prices  for  labor  demanded  by  those  who,  for 
the  time,  commanded  the  labor  market;  and  the  culti- 
vation of  the  land  seemed  impossible.  In  order  to 
cure  the  multitudinous  evils  which  were  caused  by  this 
state  of  affairs,  Parliament  passed  the  celebrated  Statute 
of  Laborers  (1349),  by  which  it  was  enacted  that, 
notwithstanding  the  increased  demand  for  labor,  no 
higher  or  lower  wages  were  to  be  paid  for  it  than  those 
customary  before  the  Black  Death ;  and,  moreover,  the 
laborer  was  forbidden  to  quit  his  parish  to  seek  em- 
ployment elsewhere.  There  seems  to  have  been  a 
belief,  as  I  have  said,  among  the  laboring  classes  that 
the  object  of  this  statute  was  to  restore  them  to  the 
condition  of  mere  villeins,  as  they  had  been  before 
the  system  of  payments  in  money  had  been  adopted, 
placing,  therefore,  the  price  of  their  labor  at  the  arbi- 
trary caprice  of  the  lord.  However  that  may  be,  the 
social  revolt  known  in  history  as  the  rebellion  of  Wat 
Tyler  and  his  associates  broke  out.  This  was  in  the 
reign  of  Richard  II. ;  and,  as  is  well  known,  the  re- 
volt was  quelled  by  measures  of  the  utmost  severity  and 
cruelty.  But,  notwithstanding  all  the  efforts  made  in 
the  interests  of  the  lords  to  enforce  these  statutes,  and 
others  of  a  later  period  founded  on  the  same  principle, 
the  natural  law  of  supply  and  demand  was  too  strong  to 
be  permanently  broken ;  labor,  as  soon  as  the  crisis  passed, 
received  its  market  price  and  value;  and  the  demand 
for  it,  silently  and  surely,  completely  extinguished  that 
modified  form  of  slavery  known  as  villenage. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  PAPACY  TO  THE  REIGN  OF  CHARLEMAGNE. 

IN  studying  the  characteristic  features  of  early  me- 
diaeval history,  we  must  be  struck  with  the  important 
place  held  in  it  by  what  we  would  now  call  "the  religious 
element."  The  influence  of  this  element  was  paramount 
in  the  development  of  civilization  in  Western  Europe 
for  at  least  seven  centuries.  The  power  of  the  Church 
directed  the  course  of  the  stream  of  history  during  these 
ages ;  kings  and  nobles  and  people  seem  but  instruments 
employed  by  Providence  to  establish  a  form  of  society 
of  which  the  Church  not  only  set  forth  the  ideal  concep- 
tion, but  of  which  it  was  to  be  the  true  ruler.  In  this 
process  the  Church  assumed  to  be  both  the  teacher  and  the 
guide.  The  struggle  between  it  and  the  wild  world  it 
sought  to  subdue  was  a  conflict  of  mind  against  matter, 
of  trained  intelligence  against  brute  force,  of  Christian 
truth  and  Christian  virtues,  sometimes,  it  is  true,  sadly 
obscured  by  baser  motives,  against  the  ferocity  and  bar- 
barism of  the  Teutonic  tribes  and  their  descendants, — an 
attempt,  in  short,  to  establish  on  earth  the  City  of  God. 

If  organized  Christianity,  which  is  only  another  name 
for  the  Church,  was  so  powerful  an  influence  in  mediaeval 
life  and  history,  we  must  study  its  nature  and  pretensions 

during  the  earlier  period  which  succeeded  the  destruction 

249 


250  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

of  the  Roman  authority  in  Western  Europe.  We  have 
caught  glimpses  of  the  extent  of  that  influence  in  our 
previous  studies.  We  have,  indeed,  encountered  the 
Pope  and  the  Church  at  every  step  of  our  progress. 
The  authority  of  the  Church  is  a  subject  of  such  vast 
importance  in  the  history  of  the  mediaeval  era,  and  an 
acquaintance  with  the  theory  on  which  it  was  based  is 
so  essential  to  any  proper  understanding  of  that  history, 
that  we  must  give  a  special  consideration  to  its  develop- 
ment. I  shall  treat  now  only  of  organized  Christianity, 
or  the  Church,  and  not  of  those  ideas  and  dogmas  which 
made  it  a  distinct  religious  creed  or  system.  I  do  so 
for  this  simple  reason,  that  whatever  influence  upon 
society  of  a  general  and  permanent  kind  was  exerted  by 
Christianity  as  a  system  of  doctrine  was  due,  in  great 
measure,  to  its  having  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
minds  of  men  through  the  organism  of  the  Church. 
Society  in  its  wild  and  chaotic  condition  during  the 
decay  of  the  Roman  Empire  was  probably  incapable  of 
receiving  moral  impressions  through  the  channels  by 
which  they  are  now  conveyed,  and  it  is  the  opinion  of  an 
historian  as  eminent  as  Guizot,  and  withal  a  Protestant, 
that  it  was  the  Church — that  is,  organized  Christianity — 
which  saved  alike  Christian  dogma  and  Christian  moral 
law  from  the  ruin  that  fell  on  all  else  that  was  civilized 
after  the  irruption  of  the  barbarians. 

The  first  thing  that  was  needed  to  secure  the  general 
adoption  at  that  time  of  any  system  either  in  the  State 
or  the  Church  was  the  belief  that  it  was  proclaimed  by 


NATURE  OF  THE  PAPAL  RULE.  251 

an  authority  strong  enough  to  enforce  obedience,  in  civil 
government  physical  force,  in  religious  opinion  appeals 
to  that  religious  or  superstitious  element  in  man  which 
in  all  ages,  when  wisely  made,  have  proved  not  only  the 
strongest  curb  to  keep  in  check  his  unruly  passions,  but 
also  the  most  potent  factor  in  moulding  his  destiny. 
What  we  have  to  do  with,  therefore,  here  is  not  Chris- 
tian doctrine,  but  the  methods  which  were  taken  to  en- 
force that  doctrine,  and  particularly  the  agencies  which 
were  used  for  that  purpose.  I  might  even  narrow  the 
field  we  are  to  explore,  and  say  that  we  are  concerned 
more  especially  with  one  particular  aspect  or  develop- 
ment of  the  Church,  and  that  is  the  papacy. 

Whatever  may  have  been  originally  the  ideal  and 
theoretical  conception  of  the  power  of  the  Church  and 
the  methods  by  which,  in  the  beginning,  it  was  organized 
for  the  government  of  the  faithful,  it  is  very  clear  that 
during  the  Middle  Age,  practically  and  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  all  these  powers  were  absorbed  and  exercised  by 
the  great  institution  called  the  papacy.  During  this 
period  the  Popes  might  have  said  of  the  Church,  L'fylise, 
c'est  moi,  in  the  same  sense  that  Louis  XIV.  said  of  the 
State,  "L'etat,  c'est  moi."  Our  business  then  for  the 
purposes  of  mediaeval  history  is  to  study  the  nature,  rise, 
and  progress  of  the  papal  power.  We  must  investigate 
this  subject  as  a  simple  historical  fact  with  which  we 
meet,  and  not  attempt  to  discuss  any  theories  concerning 
it.  We  are  not  to  enter  on  the  question  whether  it  was 
or  was  not  a  usurpation,  whether  it  was  or  was  not  of 


252  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

Divine  authority,  whether  its  institution  and  its  claims 
are  recognized  by  the  Bible.  These  questions  are,  of 
course,  in  one  aspect  vital;  but  for  our  purpose  we  must 
consider  the  papacy  simply  as  an  institution  of  control- 
ling influence  upon  the  destiny  of  mankind  through  a 
long  series  of  ages,  and  we  must  endeavor  to  account 
for  its  existence  and  for  its  power  on  historical  grounds 
only.  We  must  regard  the  papacy,  as  we  would  Chris- 
tianity itself,  as  an  historical  force  of  the  first  magni- 
tude, and  avoid  as  far  as  possible  the  dogmatic  or  theo- 
logical questions  involved  in  its  action.  We  meet  it  as 
we  do  any  historical  fact,  and  must  try  and  explain  its 
significance. 

What,  then,  is  the  papacy,  and  who  is  the  Pope? 
The  theory  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  this :  the 
Pope  is  the  bishop  of  the  See  of  Rome ;  the  bishopric 
of  that  city  has  a  primacy  above  all  the  other  bishoprics 
of  Christendom,  not  merely  because  St.  Peter  was  the 
first  bishop  of  that  city,  but  because  he  was  divinely 
commissioned  as  the  chief  or  prince  of  the  Apostles, 
with  powers  for  the  government  of  the  Church  superior 
to  all  the  others,  and  because,  in  the  Divine  order,  all  his 
rights  and  prerogatives,  as  Primate  of  the  Church,  are 
transferred  to  his  successors, — bishops  of  Rome  and 
Popes.  The  Pope,  then,  according  to  this  theory,  is 
the  universal  pastor,  bishop,  and  ruler  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  By  its  members  he  is  regarded  as  having  ex- 
ercised these  functions  from  the  beginning;  and  those 
who  deny  the  claims  of  the  papacy  admit  that  the  Pope 


THE  FIRST  BISHOPS.  253 

is  shown  by  history  to  have  governed  at  least  the 
Western  Church  since  the  fifth  century  as  chief  bishop, 
claiming  to  be  successor  of  St.  Peter  as  Bishop  of  Rome. 
A  few  words  may  be  necessary  here  as  to  the  his- 
tory of  primitive  church  organization.  It  is  said  that 
bishops  appear  in  Church  history  as  governing  or  su- 
perintending more  than  one  congregation  as  early  as  the 
second  century;  that  they  are  not  the  officers  spoken 
of  in  the  Epistles  as  Presbuteroi  or  Episcopal,  both 
terms  denoting  the  same  officer  in  a  single  congrega- 
tion. At  what  era  and  by  what  process  these  Episcopal 
became  rulers  of  churches,  after  the  manner  of  later 
bishops,  is  not  very  clear ;  and  it  does  not  concern  us 
now.  It  is  evident  that  they  were  supposed  from  early 
times  to  have  possessed  the  apostolic  authority  and  pre- 
rogative, and  also  the  power  of  transmitting  the  same 
to  their  successors  in  office.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  origin  of  the  system,  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  an 
historical  fact  that  the  organization  of  the  Church,  with 
bishops  as  its  chief  officers  possessed  of  large  powers, 
gradually  extended  over  the  greater  part  if  not  the 
whole  of  Christendom.  These  bishops  were  originally 
elected  by  the  clergy  with  the  consent  of  the  laity  within 
a  particular  city  or  district,  afterwards  called  a  diocese. 
The  legislation  of  the  Church,  at  least  before  Con- 
stantine,  was  conducted  by  a  body  of  presbyters,  called 
a  council,  under  the  presidency  and  direction  of  the 
bishop  of  the  town  or  district.  Gradually,  power  in 

the  Church  became  more  concentrated  in  the  hands  of 

22 


254  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  bishops,  and  general  councils  of  the  whole  Church, 
composed  wholly  of  bishops,  were  called  to  settle  the 
rules  of  doctrine  and  the  discipline  of  its  members 
throughout  Christendom. 

After  Christianity  became  the  State  religion  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  a  number  of  dioceses,  partly  as  a  matter 
of  convenience,  and  partly,  no  doubt,  from  the  growth 
of  an  oligarchical  spirit  in  the  hierarchy,  were  grouped 
together  in  the  more  populous  portions  of  the  Empire; 
and  they  were  then  called  a  province,  the  presiding 
bishop  of  this  province  being  known  in  the  East  as  a 
metropolitan,  and  in  the  West  as  an  archbishop.  Later, 
a  still  further  concentration  of  the  power  of  the  bishops 
was  made.  A  number  of  provinces  were  united  and 
formed  a  larger  district,  called  a  Patriarchate.  There 
were  originally  four  Patriarchates,  each  established  in  a 
capital  city  of  a  different  portion  of  the  Empire:  An- 
tioch,  Alexandria,  Rome,  were  the  seats  of  Patriarchs, 
not  merely  because  they  were  chief  cities  of  the  Empire, 
but  because  the  Christian  Church  in  each  of  them  had 
been  founded  by  an  apostle.  To  Jerusalem,  as  the 
sacred  city,  an  honorary  Patriarchate  was  assigned, 
while  the  dignity  and  importance  of  Constantinople 
as  the  capital  of  the  Empire  and  the  residence  of  the 
Emperor  were  recognized  (not  without  a  protest  on  the 
part  of  the  others)  by  making  the  archbishop  of  that 
city  a  Patriarch  also.  These  Patriarchs  were,  of  course, 
personages  of  great  importance  and  dignity,  governing 
very  large  districts,  made  up  of  many  dioceses  and 


THE  PATRIARCHATES.  255 

provinces.  Each  one  was  not  only  Patriarch,  but  metro- 
politan and  bishop  also.  The  question  of  the  papacy, 
or  the  primacy  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  is  involved  in 
the  relations  of  these  Patriarchs  to  each  other.  The 
Roman  bishop  claimed  that  to  his  See  and  Patriarchate 
belonged  the  primacy  over  all  the  others, — a  claim 
founded  not  only  upon  his  successorship  to  St.  Peter, 
which  in  the  fifth  century  was  a  recognized  tenet  of 
"Western  Christendom,  but  upon  the  alleged  allowance 
of  his  claims  by  the  decrees  of  early  general  councils 
of  the  Church,  by  whose  authority  an  appeal  in  cases 
of  disputed  questions  of  doctrine  and  discipline  was 
directed  to  be  made  to  the  See  of  Rome.  Vague  and 
shadowy  as  the  claim  of  supremacy  on  the  part  of  the 
Pope  was  in  the  beginning,  it  gradually  grew  in  strength 
until  it  seemed  to  be  fully  recognized  in  the  person  of 
Pope  Innocent  I.,  A.D.  421,  to  whom  and  to  whose 
successors  the  Emperor  Valentinian  III.  directed  that 
an  appeal  might  be  taken  in  questions  involving  the 
doctrines  of  the  Church.  Thus  the  pretensions  of  the 
Pope  to  a  supremacy  which  made  him  practically  the 
head  of  the  Church  were  sanctioned  by  Imperial  as 
well  as  by  ecclesiastical  authority. 

There  were  many  reasons,  however,  independent  of 
his  claim  to  the  primacy  founded  upon  Divine  right  as 
the  successor  of  St.  Peter,  or  upon  the  Imperial  edict, 
which  naturally  inclined  men  to  regard  the  Bishop  of 
Rome  as  the  fittest  person  for  supreme  bishop.  In  those 
days  a  visible  unity,  not  merely  unity  of  belief,  but  the 


256  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

recognition  of  an  authority  which  could  compel  abso- 
lute orthodoxy  and  uniformity  of  creed,  was  considered 
essential  to  the  life  of  the  Church.  To  men  educated 
by  the  Roman  law,  uniformity  was  the  essential  part  of 
government.  The  doctrine  of  diversity  in  unity  would 
have  been  inconceivable  to  the  Churchmen  as  to  the  law- 
yers of  the  time ;  and  as  to  the  doctrine  of  toleration, — 
"  the  noblest  innovation  of  modern  times,"  as  we  think 
it, — its  advocacy  then  would  have  been  considered  rank 
blasphemy.  This  belief,  of  course,  did  not  preclude 
disputes  as  to  what  true  orthodoxy  of  belief  consisted 
in.  On  the  contrary,  never  have  there  been  more  vio- 
lent controversies  as  to  the  fundamental  doctrines  of 
faith  than  during  the  first  four  centuries,  while  there 
were  none  in  the  East  as  to  the  form  of  Church  gov- 
ernment or  the  extent  of  Church  authority. 

These  disputes  rent  the  Eastern  Church  in  twain, 
and  all  the  wonderful  acuteness  and  dialectics  of  the 
Greek  mind  were  employed  for  centuries  in  incrusting 
the  Christian  faith  with  the  subtile  and  curious  conceits 
of  the  Oriental  systems.  The  heresies  of  Arianism, 
Manicheism,  Gnosticism,  Pelagianism,  and  countless 
other  forms  of  error,  were  the  fruit  of  these  specula- 
tions. In  this  confusion  the  Eastern  Christians  needed 
some  arbiter  whose  authority  to  settle  these  questions 
should  be  generally  recognized.  To  whom  would  they 
more  naturally  turn  than  to  the  Bishop  of  Rome  ?  He 
had  important  qualifications  as  a  judge.  Not  only  was 
he  one  of  the  four  Patriarchs,  but  the  only  one  who 


THE  SUPREMACY  OF  ROME.  257 

had  always  kept  his  jurisdiction  free  from  that  taint 
of  heresy  which  had  infected  from  time  to  time  all 
the  others  and  thus  lessened  their  catholic  authority. 
Besides,  he  was  the  bishop  of  that  great  Imperial  city 
•whose  constant  prestige,  as  I  have  so  often  said,  is  one  of 
the  most  salient  facts  in  medieval  history,  and  whose 
glory,  in  the  minds  of  thoughtful  men,  had  in  no  way 
been  affected  by  the  transfer  of  the  capital  of  the  Empire 
to  Constantinople.  They  willingly  recognized  its  bishop 
as  the  fittest  judge.  Indeed,  to  such  men  Rome  was 
never  as  great  as  when  it  ceased  to  be  the  residence  of 
the  Emperor.  As  the  Imperial  authority  declined,  that 
of  the  Pope  in  Italy  rose.  To  the  medieval  mind  Im- 
perial Rome  could  never  die.  It  was  more  Imperial 
when  it  became  truly  papal.  Nothing  is  more  striking 
than  the  contrast  between  the  wretched  Emperor  Ho- 
norius  hiding  amidst  the  marshes  of  Ravenna  from  fear 
of  the  invading  Goths,  and  the  Pope,  Innocent,  who 
comes  fearlessly  forth,  braving  the  anger  of  Alaric,  in 
order  to  rescue  from  ruin  the  city  which  had  been  aban- 
doned by  its  legal  defenders. 

Thus,  everything  seemed  to  tend  to  exalt  the  power 
of  the  Pope,  as  the  time  of  the  extinction  of  the  Western 
Empire  approached :  the  alleged  Divine  commission,  the 
decrees  of  councils,  the  appeals  to  his  decision  of  contro- 
verted questions,  the  general  recognition  of  his  authority 
by  the  Churches  of  the  West,  the  decrepitude  of  the 
Imperial  power,  the  removal  of  the  capital  to  Constan- 
tinople, the  prestige  of  Rome,  and  the  position  held  by 

22* 


258  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

its  bishop  as  the  head  of  the  only  organization  then 
existing  capable  of  alleviating  the  miseries  of  the  Gothic 
invasion  of  Italy, — all  these  things  combined  to  make 
the  mediaeval  Pope.  As  the  power  of  the  Emperor  in 
Italy  and  the  West  decayed,  that  of  the  Pope  grew  in 
vigor,  in  extent,  and,  naturally,  in  independence.  A 
nominal  recognition  of  the  power  of  the  Emperor  at 
Constantinople  and  of  that  of  his  representative — the 
Exarch — in  Italy  in  the  general  course  of  ecclesiastical 
legislation  was  for  a  time  continued ;  but  on  the  great 
question  of  the  supremacy  of  their  See,  the  bishops  of 
Rome,  the  Popes,  from  Innocent  I.  (411)  to  Gregory  I. 
(590),  gave  no  uncertain  sound.  The  circumstances  were 
propitious.  The  East  was  rent  by  dogmatic  controversies, 
the  West  was  overwhelmed  by  the  barbarian  invasions, 
and  the  Imperial  authority,  amidst  all  the  distress  and 
confusion  of  the  times,  was  absolutely  powerless.  The 
Pope  was  the  only  surviving  representative  of  a  general 
authority,  either  as  the  protector  of  those  who  suffered 
from  the  miseries  of  the  time,  or  as  the  supreme  judge 
of  what  constituted  the  orthodox  creed.  This  condition 
of  affairs,  combined  with  the  Roman  Imperial  methods 
of  exercising  its  authority,  made  the  growth  and  evolu- 
tion of  the  papal  power  to  the  condition  in  which  we 
find  it  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  century  natural 
and  inevitable. 

The  Pope's  power  as  that  of  the  supreme  and  uni- 
versal bishop  seems  to  have  been  universally  recognized 
in  the  West  in  the  time  of  Gregory  the  Great  (590). 


THE  PAPAL  MISSIONARIES.  259 

He  himself,  not  doubting  that  he  was  the  true  head  of 
Christendom,  was  not  satisfied  merely  to  decide  disputes 
which  had  arisen  in  long-established  churches  concern- 
ing doctrine  and  discipline,  and  to  administer  the  ordi- 
nary affairs  of  the  Church.  He  determined  to  show  his 
appreciation  of  the  responsibilities  of  this  headship  in  a 
way  which  will  probably  strike  us  as  affording  at  least 
the  best  proof  of  the  earnestness  of  his  convictions.  He 
determined  to  convert  distant  England  to  Christianity 
by  a  missionary  system  organized  by  him  and  respon- 
sible to  him  alone  for  its  methods  of  work.  I  need  not 
repeat  the  story  here  which  I  have  told  in  another  chap- 
ter of  this  mission.  St.  Augustine  in  England  and  St. 
Boniface  in  Germany  were  in  those  countries  the  apos- 
tles not  only  of  Christianity,  but  of  that  form  and  organ- 
ization of  Christianity  of  which  the  Pope  was  the  head. 
In  the  highest  sense  these  missions  were  Christian, 
but  in  a  most  important  sense  they  were  eminently  papal 
and  Roman.  Their  converts  in  the  vast  regions  in  which 
they  worked  were  not  merely  believers  in  Christian  doc- 
trine, but  they  were  the  children  of  that  form  of  doctrine 
established  in  Rome  under  its  bishop,  the  Pope.  Obe- 
dience to  the  Pope  was  the  first  lesson  they  were  taught 
in  their  new  vocation,  and  mediaeval  history  is  very 
much  taken  up,  as  has  been  said,  in  showing  the  influ- 
ence of  this  one  principle  of  belief  upon  their  destiny. 
Certainly  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  further  in  order  to 
explain  the  historical  fact  of  the  general  recognition 
during  the  Middle  Age  of  the  spiritual  supremacy  of 


260  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  Pope.  We  have  seen  the  Churches  established 
before  these  claims  were  generally  acknowledged  bow 
with  deference  to  the  decision  of  the  Church  of  Rome  as 
"  omnium  orbis  et  urbis  ecclcsiarum  mater  et  caput,"  and 
now  we  see  the  people  of  England  and  Germany  and 
the  remotest  North  taught  Christianity  by  Roman  au- 
thority and  as  embodied  in  Roman  doctrine.  There  is 
said  to  be  no  better  title  to  a  certain  kind  of  property 
than  that  by  prescription ;  and  if  such  a  title  be  held 
good  to  ecclesiastical  claims,  certainly  those  of  the  papacy 
would  seem,  so  far  as  we  have  yet  investigated  them, 
well  established  in  history. 

The  papal  power  was  greatly  consolidated  by  the  con- 
dition of  Italy  during  the  decline  of  the  Empire.  The 
Pope  here  appears  under  a  new  aspect.  He  is  no  longer 
a  mere  arbiter  of  theological  controversies,  but  a  civil 
ruler.  He  is  not  in  those  early  days  an  ambitious  chief 
seeking  every  opportunity  to  extend  his  domain,  but 
rather  a  promoter  of  civilization  and  order,  a  benefactor 
of  the  human  race  forced  by  necessity  to  exercise  a  cer- 
tain sort  of  temporal  power  for  the  defence  and  protec- 
tion of  his  countrymen.  It  has  sometimes  been  said 
that  the  cry  of  satisfaction,  almost  of  triumph,  of  the 
Christian  writers  of  the  day  on  the  capture  of  Rome  by 
Alaric  in  411  was  unseemly,  and  at  any  rate  that  the 
early  Christians  understood  nothing  of  patriotism  in  the 
Roman  sense.  There  is  no  doubt  but  that  Rome  rose 
from  the  ruins  after  the  siege  of  Alaric,  a  Christian  city. 
The  pagan  writers  insisted  that  its  capture  was  due  to  its 


THE  POPES  DURING    THE  INVASIONS.    261 

abandonment  of  its  old  gods ;  but  the  Pope,  while  urging 
the  faithful  to  pray  for  their  deliverance  to  the  God  of  the 
Christians,  tried  in  vain  to  rouse  the  Emperor,  Honorius, 
to  employ  the  duly-appointed  human  means,  his  own  mili- 
tary power,  for  its  defence.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at 
that  the  Christians  should  rejoice  that  such  a  phantom 
of  the  once  invincible  Imperial  authority  should  at  last 
disappear  with  the  paganism  which  was  regarded  as  the 
source  of  its  feebleness,  nor  that  the  Pope,  whose  cour- 
age against  the  barbarian  was  as  conspicuous  as  the  or- 
thodoxy of  his  belief,  should  become,  practically,  ruler  of 
the  people  of  Rome  by  the  best  of  all  titles,  that  founded 
in  their  gratitude  for  his  devotion  to  their  interests. 

In  the  dreary  days  of  violence  which  followed,  the 
Popes  became,  naturally  and  necessarily  from  their  po- 
sition and  from  the  utter  feebleness  of  the  Emperors  and 
the  Exarchs  their  representatives,  the  rulers  of  Rome 
temporal  as  well  as  spiritual.  Those  were  days  either  of 
actual  invasion  or  of  the  perpetual  fear  of  invasion  which 
threatened  by  its  violence  to  uproot  the  very  foundations 
of  Roman  society.  During  this  reign  of  terror,  which 
lasted  nearly  two  hundred  years,  the  Popes  seem  to  have 
been  the  only  officials  who  did  not  lose  their  courage  and 
presence  of  mind.  No  matter  how  alarming  the  occasion 
for  their  services,  they  were  always  equal  to  the  occasion. 
Alaric,  who  destroyed  so  rudely  the  charmed  life  which 
Rome  had  lived  for  more  than  a  thousand  years,  was  a 
Christian,  or  professed  to  be  such,  but  he  and  his  fol- 
lowers were  really  barbarians  in  their  temper,  and  bent 


262  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

on  pillage,  which  spared  the  riches  consecrated  to  religious 
uses  only  because  of  the  intervention  of  Pope  Innocent. 
Attila  was  a  barbarian  of  the  barbarians,  a  wild  savage 
drunk  with  blood,  and  well  named  "  the  Scourge  of 
God."  Yet  Pope  Leo  the  Great  hesitated  not,  with  only 
two  companions,  to  confront  this  man  in  his  fury,  and 
persuaded  him  (whether  by  exciting  his  superstitious 
terrors  or  not  it  is  hard  to  say)  to  spare  the  city  of  St. 
Peter  from  pillage  by  his  wild  hordes.  He  was  not  as 
successful  in  inducing  Genseric,  the  Vandal  chieftain,  to 
follow  the  example  of  Attila;  but  courage  and  a  sense 
of  duty  inspired  him  to  make  the  attempt. 

So  with  Pope  Gregory  I.  at  the  period  of  the  inva- 
sion of  Italy  by  the  fierce  Lombards.  Here  again,  like 
his  predecessors,  the  Pope  was  obliged  to  assume  the 
virtual  sovereignty  of  Rome  or  expose  the  people  to  ruin. 
He  alone  could  protect  Rome  and  what  remained  of  its 
inhabitants  from  slavery.  When  he  became  Pope,  the 
city  was  suffering  from  a  famine  which  was  only  relieved 
by  his  giving  up  for  its  use  the  grain  produced  by  the 
Church  estates  in  Sicily.  For  seven-and-twenty  years 
the  people  of  Rome  had  lived  in  fear  of  the  occupation 
of  the  city  by  the  Lombards.  These  wild  hordes  swept 
through  the  peninsula,  compelling  the  tillers  of  the  soil 
to  pay  them  a  third  part  of  their  produce,  plundering 
churches  and  monasteries,  destroying  the  cities,  and 
mowing  down  the  people  like  corn.  One  of  their  armies 
attacked  Rome,  and  was  driven  off  by  the  defenders  of 
the  city,  whose  courage  was  animated  by  the  intrepid 


THE  POPES  AND    THE  LOMBARDS.       263 

Pontiff.  Meanwhile,  he  was  seeking  peace  with  the  king 
of  these  fierce  Lombard  warriors,  not  merely  by  using 
earthly  weapons,  but  also  by  efforts  to  convert  them 
through  their  queen,  Theodelinda,  to  the  orthodox  and 
Catholic  faith,  for  they  were  Arians.  The  argument  from 
the  cross  seems  to  have  been  more  potent  than  that  of 
the  sword.  It  is  not  easy  to  understand,  perhaps,  all  the 
reasons  for  their  sudden  conversion.  The  result  was 
that  their  attitude  was  changed  from  one  of  armed  hos- 
tility to  that  of  professed  friendship,  that  the  blessings 
of  peace  were  secured  to  Italy,  and  that  the  Lombards 
were  made  for  the  time  obedient  sons  of  the  Church, 
when  the  Pope's  nominal  sovereign  the  Emperor  was  not 
only  unable  to  aid  him,  but  by  his  folly  was  prolonging  a 
war  which  he  was  unable  to  bring  to  a  successful  issue. 
"For  a  short  time  longer,"  says  an  eminent  writer, 
"  the  wreck  of  the  Imperial  dominion  in  Italy  was  pre- 
served by  the  sole  influence,  by  the  religious  eloquence 
and  authority,  of  the  unarmed  Bishop  of  Rome.  Such 
was  in  those  days  the  influence  and  power  of  the  clergy, 
so  completely  were  they  recognized  as  the  true  saviors 
of  society,  that  they  were  able  not  merely  to  dictate  their 
policy  to  armed  and  powerful  sovereigns,  to  arrest  bar- 
barian invasion,  and  to  snatch,  as  it  were,  conquests 
already  in  their  hands,  but  in  every  quarter  of  Western 
Europe  kings  were  seen  abdicating  their  thrones,  placing 
themselves  at  the  feet  of  the  Popes  as  humble  mendi- 
cants, and  submitting  to  the  provisions  and  discipline 
of  monks.  No  less  than  eight  Anglo-Saxon  princes 


MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 


became  monks  before  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century, 
and  about  the  same  period  kings  of  France  and  of 
Lombardy  descended  from  their  thrones  and  laid  their 
temporal  government  down  before  the  head  of  Chris- 
tendom." In  this  way,  gradually,  but  surely  and  in- 
evitably, grew  into  men's  minds  the  conception  of  the 
Pope  not  merely  as  the  great  high-priest  of  the  Church, 
but  as  a  sovereign  in  Italy  wielding  a  power  which, 
indirectly  it  is  true,  but  none  the  less  certainly,  affected 
the  policy  of  all  temporal  rulers.  Here  we  find  the 
germs  of  that  characteristic  feature  of  the  later  Middle 
Age,  the  firm  belief  held  not  only  by  the  Popes  them- 
selves, but  by  what  may  be  called  the  Church  opinion 
of  Europe,  that  the  temporal  and  the  spiritual  power 
were  and  ought  to  be  inseparably  united.  Thus  the 
power  of  the  two  swords,  as  they  were  called,  in  the 
hands  of  the  successors  of  St.  Peter,  either  of  which 
might  be  rightfully  wielded  as  the  exigencies  of  his 
office  required,  grew  gradually  familiar  to  men's  minds. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  all  political  ideas  in  the 
Middle  Age  were  conceived  under  a  theological  aspect 
and  were  worked  out  under  a  feudal  form.  The  world 
was  regarded,  as  it  had  been  represented  by  St.  Augus- 
tine in  his  great  work  on  "  the  City  of  God,"  as  a  grand 
stage,  upon  which  the  Divine  drama  of  the  redemption 
of  man  was  being  enacted.  The  creation  of  the  world 
and  the  establishment  of  human  society  were  designed 
chiefly  that  the  city  of  man  should  become  the  city  of 
God.  The  chief  end  of  life  was  to  accomplish  that 


THEORY  OF  THE  CHURCH'S  POWER.     265 

object,  and  the  Christian  Church  had  been  established 
as  the  Divine  means  by  which  that  end  was  to  be 
reached.  Hence  the  Church,  with  the  Pope  at  its  head, 
was  fully  endowed  by  the  Almighty,  as  His  representa- 
tive on  earth,  with  what  was  called  the  power  of  the 
keys, — the  power  of  opening  and  shutting  the  doors  of 
the  city  of  God,  either  in  this  world  or  in  the  next,  to 
all  who  sought  admission  to  it.  Out  of  this  theory, 
universally  recognized  in  the  Middle  Age,  grew  a 
strong  faith  in  the  extraordinary  sacerdotal  power  of 
the  Church,  and  necessarily  a  profound  conviction  of  the 
supremacy  of  its  discipline  in  earthly  affairs,  including 
all  man's  relations  to  society,  both  civil  and  ecclesias- 
tical. To  the  mass  of  Christians  the  Church  and  the 
State  were  one  and  indivisible ;  and  if,  for  convenience' 
sake,  governments  were  in  some  respects  administered 
with  special  reference  to  the  promotion  of  worldly  inter- 
ests, it  was  always  understood  that  the  exercise  of  such 
a  power  should  be,  if  not  subordinate,  at  least  not  in 
conflict  with  the  policy  and  aims  of  the  Church. 

Thus,  the  Pope,  shocked  by  the  decree  of  the  Emperor 
at  Constantinople  which  forbade  the  use  of  images  in 
the  churches,  and  powerless  to  oppose  its  enforcement, 
placed  as  he  was  between  the  robber  Lombard  king 
and  the  heretic  Emperor,  did  not  hesitate  to  cast  off 
his  allegiance,  and  to  call  in  the  aid  of  the  Frankish 
kings  to  support  by  the  sword  the  opinions  of  the  West- 
ern Church  in  regard  to  image-worship.  At  the  same 

time,  by  an  exercise  of  his  ecclesiastical  power  proper, 

23 


266  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

he  excommunicated  the  Emperor  and  those  in  the  East 
who  held  with  him  the  iconoclastic  opinions.  These 
transactions,  as  I  have  explained  elsewhere,  form  a  most 
momentous  epoch  in  human  history.  They  first  made 
the  Pope,  in  any  direct  and  proper  sense,  a  temporal 
ruler,  for  the  zealous  Franks  bestowed  upon  him  the 
conquered  Exarchate,  and  the  result  was  the  final  sepa- 
ration of  the  East  from  the  West, — a  separation  far 
more  important  in  its  effect  than  the  abdication,  in  476, 
of  the  Emperor  of  the  West.  More  than  all,  they  led 
to  the  establishment,  in  the  person  of  Charlemagne  and 
his  successors,  of  a  new  or  revived  Roman  Empire,  with 
such  relations  between  the  Emperor  and  the  Pope  as  to 
make  the  events  of  subsequent  mediaeval  history  chiefly 
illustrations  of  the  conflict  between  the  lofty  claims  of 
sacerdotal  authority  as  established  by  the  Church  and 
the  inextinguishable  passion  of  personal  independence 
in  the  Teutonic  race. 

The  Popes  and  the  Emperors  become  from  the  be- 
ginning of  the  ninth  century  the  great  personages  of 
mediaeval  history.  In  order  to  show  how  natural  and 
easy  seemed  the  path  by  which  the  Pope,  in  the  year 
800,  reached  the  point  where,  as  vicegerent  of  God  on 
earth,  he  could  bestow  the  Imperial  diadem  of  the 
Caesars  on  Charlemagne  with  the  prerogatives  of  the 
world-monarch,  it  is  only  necessary  to  say  here  that  no 
one  at  that  time  was  any  more  inclined  to  doubt  the 
power  of  the  Pope  to  create  a  new  Emperor,  if  the 
interests  of  the  Church  required  it,  than  his  right  to 


GREATNESS  OF  THE  EARLY  POPES.      267 

excommunicate  the  old  one  for  heresy,  or  to  renounce 
from  the  same  motive  his  allegiance  to  that  Emperor  at 
Constantinople  who  was  the  true  successor  of  Augustus 
and  of  Constantine. 

There  is  one  cause  of  the  rapid  and  extraordinary 
development  of  the  power  of  the  papacy  which  we  must 
not  fail  to  observe ;  and  that  is  the  greatness  of  the  men 
who  filled  St.  Peter's  chair  at  the  important  epochs  of 
its  earlier  history.  They  were  not  merely  ecclesiastics. 
Had  they  been  such,  the  papacy,  so  far  as  we  can  see, 
would  never  have  consolidated  its  power,  nor  have  influ- 
enced human  history  as  it  has  done.  They  were  states- 
men as  well, — that  is,  the  men  of  their  age  who  had  the 
justest  conceptions  of  the  needs  of  that  age  and  adopted 
the  wisest  means  to  secure  their  ends. 

In  one  aspect  only  was  the  end  proposed  to  himself 
by  each  Pope  the  same.  They  all  equally  aimed  to 
secure  the  supremacy  of  the  See  of  St.  Peter,  doubtless 
because  they  all  believed  that  such  was  the  Divine  order. 
Popes  like  Innocent  and  Leo  and  Gregory  are  called 
great  by  the  Church  historians,  and,  on  the  whole,  the 
title  seems  to  be  well  deserved.  They  were  great,  not 
merely  because  in  a  rude  age  they  established  the  supe- 
riority of  mind  over  force,  but  also  because  they  con- 
firmed the  supremacy  of  the  See  of  Rome  in  the  face 
of  the  most  formidable  obstacles.  Their  greatness  con- 
sisted, among  other  things,  in  their  capacity  to  make  all 
the  circumstances  by  which  they  were  surrounded  at  a 
particular  time  subserve  their  chief  purpose.  Whether 


268  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

in  the  days  of  their  weakness  they  thought  it  expedient 
to  flatter  the  vanity  of  Constantino,  or,  as  they  grew 
stronger,  to  denounce  the  impiety  of  Theodosius, 
whether  by  means  of  their  example  and  discipline  they 
were  striving  to  teach  the  lessons  of  Christian  charity 
to  the  Roman  population  corrupted  by  cruelty  and  vice, 
or  whether  they  were  asserting  their  claims  to  be  the 
arbiters  of  orthodoxy  in  the  Church,  whether  they  were 
deprecating  the  wrath  of  Alaric  or  Geiiseric  or  Attila, 
which  threatened  their  destruction,  or  asserting  a  Divine 
right  to  excommunicate  one  Emperor  of  the  world  be- 
cause he  was  a  heretic  and  to  substitute  another  for 
him  who  was  orthodox, — no  matter,  I  say,  what  hap- 
pened, the  Popes  I  have  named  seemed  to  know  how 
to  treat  each  event  in  such  a  way  as  to  increase  and 
consolidate  the  power  of  the  Roman  See.  Their  chief 
aim,  undoubtedly,  was  to  place  their  spiritual  power 
upon  a  firm  foundation ;  but,  this  once  secured,  the  re- 
sult was  for  centuries  the  practical  subordination  of  the 
temporal  power  to  the  spiritual.  And  we  are  not  to  for- 
get that  the  Pope's  power,  both  in  the  Church  and  in  the 
State,  thus  grew  naturally  and  logically  out  of  oppor- 
tunities wisely  used,  as  they  occurred,  to  strengthen  it. 

It  remains  to  consider  what  history  teaches  us  con- 
cerning what  was  good  and  what  was  evil  in  this  papal 
power  so  highly  exalted,  as  well  as  the  nature  of  its  in- 
fluence upon  the  progress  and  civilization  of  mankind. 
We  can  only  consider  this  subject  satisfactorily  by  ob- 
serving the  result  at  different  periods  of  history.  We 


EFFECT  OF  THE  PAPAL  RULE.  269 


may  find  that  what  was  good  in  itself  and  adapted  to 
the  needs  of  society  at  one  time  may  have  become  at 
another,  from  a  change  of  circumstances,  a  source  of 
unmixed  evil.  Let  us  consider  in  this  chapter  some 
features  of  the  papal  policy  as  they  are  shown  by  the 
study  we  have  made  of  its  history  to  the  year  800. 

We  must  try,  of  course,  in  order  to  form  a  correct 
judgment,  to  place  ourselves  in  the  position  of  those 
who  lived  and  were  forced  to  act  in  those  days  when  the 
power  of  the  papacy  was  developing  its  pretensions  to 
the  government  of  the  world,  and  we  must  not  apply 
our  modern  standard  to  a  condition  of  the  world's  his- 
tory wholly  different  from  our  own.  Adopting  such  a 
method,  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  the  papacy,  whatever 
we  may  think  of  it  as  a  proper  form  of  Church  govern- 
ment and  of  its  claims  now,  was,  at  least  in  the  earlier 
portion  of  the  Middle  Age,  like  many  other  institu- 
tions which  then  grew  up,  but  which  survived  their  use- 
fulness (the  feudal  system,  for  example),  a  necessity  of 
the  time.  If  we  cannot  regard  it  as  an  ideal  system 
suited  to  all  times,  yet  we  may  think  it  the  best  possible 
system  under  the  circumstances  in  which  it  was  placed 
by  the  ruin  of  the  Empire.  To  reach  this  conclusion, 
we  must  carefully  consider  the  anarchy  and  confusion  in 
Western  Europe  in  that  era  when  the  mission  of  the 
Church  was  naturally  to  make  these  barbarians  ortho- 
dox Christians,  and  to  assimilate,  if  possible,  their  pe- 
culiarities with  whatever  was  good  in  the  heritage  of 

the  Roman  civilization.     I  have  certainly  said  enough 

23* 


270  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

heretofore  of  the  habits  and  ideas  of  these  heathen  in- 
vaders to  prove  that  if  they  were  to  be  made  Christians 
at  all,  or  to  become  civilized  in  the  Roman  sense,  there 
was  but  one  way  to  accomplish  these  objects,  and  that 
was  by  the  wise  use  of  the  force  of  a  strong  will,  or 
even  of  a  despotic  government. 

What  would  have  become  of  Christianity  in  those 
days  of  invasion  if  a  system  of  equality  among  the 
faithful  in  the  administration  of  its  government  had 
prevailed  such  as  existed  in  the  apostolic  times  among 
populations  accustomed  for  ages  to  unquestioning  sub- 
mission to  the  Roman  law  because  it  was  the  law? 
If  such  a  system  had  been  introduced  as  a  means  of 
governing  Christian  communities  and  of  propagating 
Christianity  among  the  barbarian  converts,  we  can 
hardly  doubt  that  it  would  have  failed.  We  have  only 
to  recall  the  strange  methods  by  which,  in  accordance 
with  the  manners  of  the  time,  these  tribes  became  Chris- 
tian, to  answer  such  a  question.  -Consider,  for  instance, 
the  conversion  of  the  Saxons  on  the  banks  of  the  Elbe 
by  Charlemagne,  when  he  gave  his  conquered  enemies 
the  alternative  of  being  baptized  or  of  being  drowned ; 
or  that  of  the  followers  of  Clovis,  who  became  Chris- 
tians at  the  bidding  and  following  the  example  of  their 
chief.  All  the  tribes  of  the  invasion,  we  must  remem- 
ber, were  made  up  of  those  in  whom  the  instinct  of 
savagery  could  only  be  rooted  out  by  persistent  and 
irresistible  force,  and,  as  far  as  Christianity  and  its 
special  doctrines  were  concerned,  these  barbarians  were 


THE   CHURCH'S   VISIBILITY  AND    UNITY.  271 

mere  children,  and  needed  a  long  education.  The  great 
evangelic  truths,  charity,  justice,  chastity,  meekness, 
gentleness,  were  precisely  the  qualities,  of  all  others, 
which  these  rude  children  of  the  North  most  thoroughly 
despised,  and  the  only  way  to  give  them  control  over 
their  lives  was  to  teach  them  by  an  authority  they  were 
bound  to  respect,  for  in  such  a  way  only  had  they  always 
been  taught.  To  suppose  that  a  system  based  upon  such 
doctrines  could  by  the  force  of  mere  moral  suasion,  as 
it  is  called,  maintain  any  practical  control  over  the  lives 
of  these  barbarians,  or  that  Christianity  could  have  sur- 
vived or  been  propagated  among  these  tribes  under  any 
conceivable  form  of  self-government,  seems  to  me  the 
greatest  of  delusions. 

We  must  not  neglect  two  peculiarities  of  this  organi- 
zation, which  I  have  heretofore  insisted  upon,  as  most 
important  in  the  position  of  the  Church  in  those  days, 
its  visibility  and  its  unity.  The  Church  and  the  Pope  at 
its  head  formed  a  visible  power ;  and  to  the  mind  of  the 
Middle  Age,  which  viewed  every  principle  in  its  concrete 
and  not  in  its  abstract  form,  it  assimilated  the  ecclesias- 
tical to  the  civil  power,  where  it  did  not  confound  the 
two,  always  present,  always  ready  to  act,  and  always 
real.  In  the  same  way  the  unity  of  the  power  of  the 
Church  had  immense  influence  upon  the  imagination  of 
the  barbarians.  The  power  of  the  Church  became  as 
much  a  part  of  the  life  of  every  one  as  the  power  of 
the  chief  or  king,  and  thus  gradually  and  impercep- 
tibly, but  surely,  the  foundations  of  the  new  society 


272  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

were  laid.  The  barbarians  respected  the  Church  just 
as  they  respected  any  other  power,  simply  because  it 
presented  itself  as  an  official  form  of  authority  and 
could  make  itself  felt.  When  the  Church  had  reached 
this  point  in  the  control  of  its  converts,  it  was  able 
to  enforce  a  practical  obedience  to  the  evangelic  duties 
by  means  which  they  could  appreciate. 

In  the  earlier  ages  this  work  was  done  through  the 
agency  of  the  bishops,  who  were  not  merely  the  stren- 
uous asserters  of  the  doctrine  and  discipline  of  the 
Church  within  their  jurisdiction,  but  also,  as  I  have  said, 
the  strongest  defenders  of  their  people  against  the  misery 
and  tyranny  of  the  time.  In  the  early  days  of  the  inva- 
sions they  Avere  the  champions  and  representatives  of  the 
conquered,  and  they  sought  to  protect  the  lives  and  save 
from  pillage  and  ruin  the  property  of  those  whom  they 
governed.  For  a  long  time  they  seem  to  have  been 
the  only  recognized  and  official  representatives  of  those 
who  suffered  from  this  rule  of  force.  But  the  feudal 
system,  which  altered  so  profoundly  the  organization  of 
civil  society  in  an  unexpected  way,  took  away  from  the 
bishops  the  desire,  perhaps  the  capacity,  to  exercise  any 
longer  this  holy  mission.  The  episcopate  became  an 
aristocracy,  and  was  practically,  for  a  time,  absorbed  by 
the  State.  The  bishops  appointed  by  the  king  formed 
a  part  of  the  aristocracy  of  the  country.  They  became 
feudal  barons,  with  rights  of  sovereignty  and  other  feudal 
powers,  such  as  were  conferred  upon  the  dukes  and 
counts  under  that  system.  The  wealth  of  many  of  their 


MEDIAEVAL  BISHOPS.  273 

sees  was  enormous,  and  they  soon  exhibited  the  same 
tastes  and  the  same  passions  as  the  aristocracy  of  which 
they  formed  part.  They  neglected  the  cure  of  souls ; 
they  became  too  feeble  or  too  indolent  to  defend  the 
rights  of  the  Church  against  the  encroachments  of  the 
warrior  chiefs;  and  very  often  they  forgot  their  duty  and 
gave  themselves  up  to  the  pleasures  and  occupations  of 
the  world  around  them. 

In  this  condition  they  ceased  to  be,  as  was  proper  and 
natural,  any  longer  the  guides  of  the  Christian  people. 
Under  these  circumstances  the  power  of  the  Church  was 
practically,  for  the  time,  taken  out  of  their  hands  by 
the  Pope.  Certainly  nothing  is  more  remarkable  in 
the  writings  of  those  Popes  whom  history  calls  great, 
before  the  year  800,  than  the  manner  in  which  they  de- 
nounce the  faithlessness  of  the  bishops,  and  the  earnest- 
ness with  which  they  protest  against  that  fatal  vice  of 
the  feudal  system  which  permitted  these  prelates  to  pur- 
chase their  sees  of  the  king,  thus  committing  that  most 
grievous  of  ecclesiastical  sins,  simony,  or  the  purchase 
of  Church  dignities  for  money,  to  the  disgrace  of  their 
order,  in  violation  of  the  canons  of  the  Church,  and 
to  the  ruin  of  the  people  committed  to  their  charge. 
Organized  Christianity  seemed  to  be  in  danger  of  be- 
coming a  Caliphate,  where  the  head  of  the  State  would 
be  practically  also  the  head  of  the  Church.  The  Popes, 
with  a  fine  instinct  of  the  duties  of  their  position,  be- 
gan a  conflict  to  assert  their  jurisdiction  in  the  appoint- 
ment of  bishops, — a  dispute  which,  under  the  name  of 


274  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  War  of  the  Investitures,  was  waged  for  centuries, 
and  of  which  we  shall  speak  in  its  proper  place. 

One  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  papacy  in  these  times, 
when  all  else  was  local,  narrow,  and  separatist,  was  its 
thoroughly  cosmopolitan  spirit.  Deeply  impressed  with 
the  belief  that  the  Christian  religion  was  a  world-religion, 
Catholic  in  its  highest  sense,  all  their  measures  were 
taken  to  make  their  ideal  conception  of  it  a  reality. 
This  is  remarkably  illustrated  by  their  policy  in  regard 
to  Christian  missions.  They  began  properly  by  the  effort 
made  by  Gregory  I.  in  590  to  convert  the  Anglo-Saxons 
in  England,  and  were  followed  by  the  work  of  Boniface 
in  Germany  and  Anskar  in  Denmark.  The  result  was 
not  merely  to  bring  the  population  of  these  countries 
into  the  obedience  of  the  Roman  See,  but  also  to  aid 
greatly  in  bringing  them  within  the  pale  of  Roman  civ- 
ilization. Nothing  tended  more  to  maintain  the  condition 
of  barbarism  in  Europe  than  the  long-continued  separa- 
tion and  isolation  in  which  the  people  lived.  Gradually 
they  were  brought  into  relations  with  each  other  which 
had  a  common  basis ;  and  the  two  agencies  which  had 
most  to  do  with  fusing  them  together  were  a  common 
Christianity  organized  under  a  supreme  head,  and  the 
Roman  law  and  system  of  administration. 

Modern  civilization  is  much  indebted  to  the  work  of 
the  early  Popes  acting  in  opposition  to  the  authority  of 
the  kings,  and  very  often  to  that  of  the  bishops,  many 
of  whom  had  become  under  the  feudal  system  thor- 
oughly secularized.  As  I  have  said  before,  I  am  not 


PRETENSIONS  OF  THE  PAPAL  POWER.   275 

concerned  here  with  the  question  how  far  under  the 
Popes  was  established  a  system  of  government  unlike 
that  of  the  apostles  or  that  of  the  early  Christians,  but 
with  their  efforts  to  civilize  and  humanize  the  savages 
by  making  them  Christians,  and  to  prevent  the  Church, 
and  the  riches  with  which  it  had  been  endowed,  from 
becoming  the  prey  of  the  spoiler.  While  there  were 
many  very  bad  Popes  in  this  era,  the  greatest  and  best 
also  then  ruled  the  Church.  To  the  exercise  of  their 
power  it  is  due,  among  other  things,  that  the  sanctity 
of  married  and  domestic  life  has  been  surrounded  by  so 
many  safeguards  in  the  habits  and  opinions  of  modern 
Europe ;  that  Christian  charity  is  coextensive  with  Chris- 
tian belief;  that  the  evils  of  slavery  and  cruelty,  deep- 
rooted  iu  Roman  as  in  barbarian  society,  were  mitigated ; 
that,  by  means  of  the  discipline  which  they  enforced,  the 
ideal  at  least  of  justice  and  right  was  maintained ;  and 
that  the  practical  equality  of  all  men  as  Christians  was 
insisted  upon. 

These  early  Popes  did,  no  doubt,  a  noble  and  fruitful 
work,  but  it  was  done  on  a  principle  and  assumption 
which  modern  society  has  refused  to  recognize  as  a  true 
guide ;  but  we  must  not  misjudge  them  on  that  account. 
That  principle  was  the  supremacy  of  their  own  authority 
in  the  last  resort  in  all  cases.  To  it  all  power  on  earth, 
civil  and  ecclesiastical,  must  bow.  For  a  time  that  prin- 
ciple was,  as  we  have  seen,  universally  recognized  and 
assented  to ;  but  shortly  after  the  epoch  of  the  coronation 
of  Charlemagne  as  Emperor  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire, 


276  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

that  great  act  which  was  designed  to  perfect  and  con- 
solidate the  papal  power,  a  conflict  between  its  claims 
and  those  of  the  opposite  principle,  that  of  individualism, 
arose,  and  has  continued  in  one  form  or  another  to  this 
day.  This  conflict  forms  an  era  in  the  history  of  the 
papacy;  and  I  propose  in  the  next  chapter  to  consider 
its  earlier  stages. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  PAPACY  AND  THE  EMPIRE. 

THE  mediaeval  theory  of  the  relations  between  Church 
and  State  was  supposed  to  have  found  a  practical  solu- 
tion in  the  revival  of  the  "Western  Empire,  and  the 
coronation  of  Charlemagne  as  Emperor  of  what  is  called 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  by  the  Pope  or  Bishop  of 
Rome,  in  the  year  800.  That  theory,  in  its  fullest 
development,  is  thus  set  forth  by  Mr.  Bryce:  "The 
Holy  Roman  Church  and  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  are 
one  and  the  same  thing  in  two  aspects.  Catholicism, 
the  principle  of  the  universal  Christian  society,  is  also 
Romanism;  that  is  to  say,  it  rests  upon  Rome  as  the 
origin  and  type  of  its  universality,  manifesting  itself 
in  a  mystic  dualism  which  corresponds  to  the  two  na- 
tures of  its  Founder.  Opposition  between  two  servants 
of  the  same  king  is  inconceivable,  each  being  bound  to 
aid  and  succor  the  other,  the  co-operation  of  both  being 
needed  in  all  that  concerns  the  welfare  of  Christendom 
at  large."  In  this  way  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor 
divide  the  government  of  the  whole  world,  and  by  it 
the  only  self-consistent  union  of  Church  and  State  is 
reached.  The  rightful  Pope  was  he  who  had  been 
canonically  elected  and  was  approved  by  the  Emperor ; 

the  rightful  Emperor  was  that  King  of  the  Franks  who 

24  277 


278  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

had  been  crowned  by  the  Pope  in  Rome.  The  change 
from  the  old  Roman  system  to  that  of  the  mediaeval  age 
was  supposed  to  be  this,  that  while  under  the  former 
the  two  offices  of  Imperator  and  Pontifex  Maximus 
were  held  by  the  same  person,  in  the  latter  their  duties 
were  performed  by  two,  each  supposed  to  be  governed 
by  the  same  impulse.  In  a  previous  chapter  we  have 
endeavored  to  explain  the  motives  and  objects  of  the 
original  parties  to  this  agreement, — Charlemagne  and 
the  Pope;  and  we  have  now  to  consider  the  practical 
working  of  the  system  in  the  hands  of  their  successors. 
We  must  not  judge  of  the  wisdom  or  political  sagacity 
of  those  who  maintained  this  theory  of  the  dualism  of 
the  world-monarchy  and  the  world-religion  by  what  we 
know,  from  subsequent  history,  of  its  lamentable  failure. 
We  should  rather  remember  that  at  the  time  it  was 
adopted,  or  rather  during  many  ages  before  and  subse- 
quent to  its  formal  establishment  in  the  reign  of  Charle- 
magne, this  theory  was  perfectly  in  accordance  with  the 
intellectual  wants  of  Europe.  Catholicism  was  not 
then  a  tyranny,  for  the  speculations  it  permitted  were 
fully  commensurate  with  the  wants  of  the  best  thinkers 
of  the  age.  It  was  not  a  sect  or  an  isolated  influence 
acting  in  the  midst  of  Europe  and  forming  a  weight 
in  the  balance  of  power,  but  rather  an  all-pervading 
energy,  animating  and  vivifying  the  whole  social  system. 
During  the  period  when  the  papacy  asserted  its  loftiest 
claims  to  the  government,  ecclesiastical  and  civil,  of  the 
world,  there  was  a  certain  unity  of  type  of  thought  and 


THE  NEW  THEORY  IN  PRACTICE.         279 

belief  as  to  the  nature  and  lawfulness  of  this  form 
of  government.  The  feudal  system,  the  monarchy,  the 
laws,  the  studies,  even  the  amusements  of  the  people, 
all  grew  out  of  ecclesiastical  teaching  and  embodied 
ecclesiastical  modes  of  thought.  The  Church,  with  the 
Pope  at  its  head,  was  the  very  heart  of  Christendom, 
and  the  spirit  that  radiated  from  it  penetrated  into  all 
the  relations  of  life,  and  colored  the  institutions  it  did 
not  create. 

Notwithstanding,  however,  the  universal  faith  of 
Christendom  in  this  magnificent  scheme  of  the  proper 
relations  between  the  Church  and  the  State,  as  repre- 
sented by  the  Pope  and  by  the  Emperor,  history  shows 
us  that  for  the  special  purpose  it  had  in  view  it  was  a 
stupendous  mistake.  Obstacles  to  its  full  development, 
which  no  one  at  the  time  it  was  adopted  could  have  an- 
ticipated, soon  made  its  success  hopeless.  It  is  with  the 
nature  and  force  of  these  obstacles  that  we  are  concerned 
here.  In  one  sense  their  history  illustrates  an  important 
phase  of  the  strife  out  of  which  modern  life  and  modern 
ideas  were  evolved,  for  it  exhibits  not  merely  a  struggle 
for  power  between  the  Church  and  the  State,  but  also  a 
conflict  between  the  principle  of  authority  and  that  of 
individualism,  a  conflict  perpetually  going  on  in  Euro- 
pean life  and  inseparable  from  its  constitution. 

What,  then,  does  history  tell  us  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  alliance  between  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor, 
as  settled  at  the  coronation  of  Charlemagne,  was  carried 
out  ?  The  great  Emperor,  as  I  need  not  repeat,  was  in 


280  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

one  sense  the  most  powerful  champion  and  advocate  of 
the  Church  in  all  history.  Practically,  he  fulfilled  the 
functions  of  defender  of  the  universal  or  catholic  faith 
as  a  duty  which  he  had  solemnly  assumed  at  his  corona- 
tion. He  was  in  this  sense  the  most  active  and  efficient 
of  missionaries.  But  in  so  doing  Charlemagne  was  in 
this  sense  only  under  the  orders  of  the  Pope,  that  he 
considered  it  his  duty  as  Roman  or  Christian  Emperor 
to  enlarge  the  boundaries  and  enforce  the  discipline  of 
the  Church.  With  the  title  he  had  assumed  also  the 
Imperial  power  of  a  Theodosius  or  a  Justinian,  both  of 
whom  claimed  to  rule  the  Church  and  the  Empire  as 
sovereign.  His  laws  or  decrees  which  fix  the  obliga- 
tions, the  revenues,  and  even  the  duties  of  the  clergy 
are  issued  in  the  name  of  the  Emperor.  They  are  mo- 
narchical and  Imperial,  and  not  papal  or  even  synodical. 
The  claim  that  the  Imperial  crown  was  the  gift  of 
the  Pope  was  not  set  forth  by  the  Church  authorities 
during  the  reign  of  the  Emperor.  It  would  have  been, 
indeed,  singularly  out  of  place  to  have  done  so  when 
Charlemagne  was  recognized  not  only  as  Emperor  and 
world-monarch,  but  as  King  of  the  Franks,  with  abso- 
lute power  over  the  estates  both  of  the  Church  and  of 
the  laity.  The  Emperor  was  a  faithful  son  of  the 
Church,  but  he  took  his  own  way  of  showing  his 
fidelity.  He  founded  many  bishoprics,  endowed  many 
monasteries,  and  gave  to  the  claim  to  tithes  the  sanc- 
tion of  Imperial  law ;  but  all  these  steps  to  aggrandize 
the  Church  were  taken  without  consulting  the  Pope,  and 


THE  EARLY  EMPERORS  AND   THE  POPES.  281 

simply  from  his  sense  of  what  was  fitting  in  him  to 
do  as  the  ruler  of  Christendom.  The  Church  influence, 
then,  in  his  day  and  in  that  of  his  successor  was  not 
such  as  to  make  him  that  obedient  son  of  the  Pope 
which  perhaps  the  theory  of  his  relations  to  the  head 
of  the  Church  implied  that  he  should  become,  and 
which  in  the  later  days,  when  Popes  were  stronger  and 
Emperors  weaker  than  they  were  in  those  of  Charle- 
magne, formed  the  basis  of  their  relations  to  each  other. 
The  Popes  in  the  time  of  Charlemagne  and  that  of  his 
son,  Louis  the  Pious,  were  in  no  condition  to  dictate  to 
the  Emperors  their  policy,  even  if  they  could  not  wholly 
approve  it.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  during  a  large 
portion  of  the  Middle  Age  an  order  of  the  Pope  might 
strike  terror  into  the  hearts  of  the  rulers  of  the  most  dis- 
tant countries  and  of  the  Emperor  himself,  and  yet  the 
Pope  in  Rome  itself  was  often  at  the  mercy  of  a  mere 
mob.  Such  was  not  the  case  in  the  day  of  Charlemagne. 
His  thoroughly  Imperial  attitude  (in  the  Roman  sense) 
towards  the  Church  was  fully  recognized,  and  even  the 
irregularities  of  his  own  private  life,  especially  in  his 
marriage  relations,  were  regarded  at  Rome  at  least  with 
tenderness.  In  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries  the  Popes 
were  forced  to  lean  for  support  more  and  more  on  the 
strong  arm  of  the  Emperors.  With  their  local  au- 
thority set  at  defiance,  and  their  lives  even  threatened 
by  the  Roman  populace  or  by  the  fierce  barons  of  the 
Campagua,  they  were  only  too  glad  to  seek  aid  from  the 

Emperors,  successors  of  Charlemagne,  who  alone  could 

24* 


282     ,  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

restore  them  to  the  exercise  of  their  lawful  spiritual 
power. 

The  theory  of  Charlemagne's  time  of  the  mutual  in- 
terdependence of  the  Empire  and  the  papacy  had  but  a 
one-sided  application  for  many  years  after  the  death  of 
the  great  Emperor  and  of  his  descendants,  and  during 
the  fierce  struggle  which  ensued  upon  the  extinction  of 
his  posterity  among  the  princes  of  Italy  for  the  supreme 
rule  of  that  country.  The  Popes  were  often  the  nomi- 
nees of  the  Emperor,  always  more  or  less  dependent 
upon  his  authority  for  the  maintenance  of  their  position, 
and  any  attempt,  under  such  circumstances,  to  assume 
that  haughty  attitude  towards  the  Empire  which  be- 
came in  later  days  habitual,  on  the  ground  of  their 
spiritual  supremacy,  would  have  been  as  futile  as  it 
would  have  been  ill-timed.  The  weapons  in  the  spir- 
itual armory  were  carefully  preserved,  but  they  were 
not  used  until  the  times  grew  more  propitious  and  men 
occupied  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  who  knew  how  to  wield 
them. 

The  papacy  itself,  from  the  middle  of  the  ninth  to 
the  middle  of  the  tenth  century,  was  in  a  state  of  ab- 
solute degradation  and  abasement.  It  was  the  prize 
sought  for  by  violent,  ambitious,  and  dissolute  men, 
and,  when  gained,  its  holy  office  was  defiled  by  the 
crimes  of  those  who  held  it.  Its  moral  power,  in  Italy 
at  least,  seemed  for  the  time  lost.  In  these  dark  days, 
so  far  from  the  Empire  being  controlled  by  the  Pope,  it 
was  the  Pope  himself  and  the  most  sincere  and  religious 


THE   WORK  OF  HILDEBRAND.  283 

Churchmen  of  the  time  who  constantly  appealed  to  the 
Emperor  to  save  the  papacy  from  absolute  ruin. 

About  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century  a  change  or 
revival  takes  place,  and  the  great  figure  of  Hildebrand, 
afterwards  Gregory  VIL,  comes  into  view.  He  presents 
himself  not  only  as  a  reformer  of  the  discipline  of  the 
clergy,  but  as  having  established  practically  upon  a  new 
basis  the  relations  of  the  spiritual  with  the  civil  power. 
Gregory  VII.  belonged  to  that  strong  race  of  monks 
who  were  the  bravest  and  most  earnest  reformers  of 
society  in  Western  Europe  in  the  darkest  days  of  the 
Middle  Age.  Surely,  if  there  ever  was  a  time  when 
reform  of  the  most  sweeping  kind  was  needed,  both  in 
Church  and  in  State,  to  save  society  from  relapsing  into 
barbarism,  it  was  in  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century, 
when  the  influence  of  Hildebrand  became  conspicuous. 
The  Church  had  become  completely  secularized,  by  which 
comprehensive  word  I  mean  that  its  humanizing  and  civ- 
ilizing character,  the  life-giving  influence  of  the  spirit  of 
Christianity,  of  which  it  was  the  representative,  had  been 
almost  destroyed.  The  power  of  its  discipline  was  made 
subordinate  to  the  rule  of  force,  which  then  governed  the 
world  under  the  name  of  the  feudal  system,  of  which 
the  bishops  were  often  among  the  richest  and  most 
powerful  members.  The  distinguishing  features  of  all 
true  civilization,  reason,  right,  and  justice,  which  it  was 
the  great  office  of  the  Church  to  embody  and  to  main- 
tain, had  almost  disappeared  from  the  control  of  affairs. 
Pope  after  Pope  was  elected  by  men  moved  only  by 


284  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  furious  passions  of  the  Roman  mob  or  by  the  plun- 
dering spirit  of  the  barons  of  the  Roman  Campagna ; 
the  riches  of  the  Church,  which  had  so  largely  increased 
as  to  give  to  its  higher  officials  the  control  of  nearly 
half  of  the  cultivated  land  of  Europe,  were  so  diverted 
from  their  original  use  and  intention  as  to  convert  the 
bishops  into  mere  feudal  barons,  to  the  great  loss  and 
suffering  of  God's  poor.  The  grand  dream  of  Charle- 
magne, which  sought,  in  the  establishment  of  a  universal 
monarchy,  perpetually  informed,  penetrated,  and  guided 
by  a  universal  religion,  to  establish  on  earth  a  society  in 
which  peace,  based  on  the  rule  of  law  and  order,  was 
to  reign, — all  this  fair  dream  was  dispelled  by  the  rude 
shock  which  the  infant  European  civilization  received 
from  the  disintegration  of  his  universal  monarchy  and 
the  consequent  return  of  that  barbarism  out  of  which 
his  strong  arm  had  lifted  it. 

In  the  confusion  and  anarchy  which  grew  out  of  this 
condition,  the  relations  between  the  Pope  and  the  Em- 
peror, which  had  been  established  by  Charlemagne  and 
reaffirmed  by  Otho  the  Great  for  the  government  of  the 
world,  remained  nominally  the  same;  but  for  nearly 
two  centuries  it  had  become  practically  impossible  for 
either  to  exercise  his  respective  functions  as  had  been 
originally  designed.  To  this  severance  of  these  rela- 
tions Hildebrand  ascribed  all  the  evils  of  the  time, — the 
worst  of  all  being,  in  his  opinion,  that  practical  depend- 
ence of  the  Popes  on  the  secular  power  which  had  been 
substituted  for  the  harmonious  co-operation  of  each  left 


THEOCRATIC  PRINCIPLES.  285 

free  to  act  in  his  own  sphere.  The  venality,  corruption, 
and  neglect  of  duty  on  the  part  of  the  bishops,  the  con- 
sequent contempt  of  the  discipline  of  the  Church,  the 
suffering,  the  oppression,  and  the  degradation  of  the 
population,  were  in  his  opinion  more  or  less  due  to  this 
change.  To  Gregory  VII.  the  reform  needed  was  the 
revival  of  the  theocratic  spirit  in  European  society  and 
the  control  of  its  development  by  the  power  and  disci- 
pline of  the  Church.  The  Imperial  power,  having,  in 
his  opinion,  failed  to  do  the  duty  assigned  to  it,  must 
therefore  be  disowned. 

We  must  remember,  in  considering  his  plan,  not  only 
that  Hildebrand  was  a  monk  with  the  most  ascetic  spirit 
and  naturally  imbued  with  the  ideas  of  the  cloister,  but 
also  that  he  was  only  carrying  out  the  theory  embodied 
in  the  great  text-book  on  the  relations  between  ecclesias- 
tical and  civil  power  during  the  Middle  Age,  St.  Augus- 
tine's famous  treatise  De  Civitaie  Dei,  which  had  been  the 
real  basis  of  the  arrangement  with  Charlemagne.  To  our 
modern  notions  Gregory's  system  appears  very  narrow, 
and  insufficient,  and  wholly  despotic ;  but  we  need  not 
for  that  reason  doubt  his  earnestness  and  sincerity.  And, 
further,  we  may  believe  that  in  what  he  did,  lofty  as 
were  his  claims,  he  was  not  moved  by  mere  worldly 
ambition,  a  desire  to  advance  himself  or  to  aggrandize 
his  family,  as  were  so  many  of  his  successors,  but  that 
according  to  his  lights  he  was  a  true  reformer,  striving  to 
exalt  the  papacy  as  the  best  means,  at  least  in  that  day, 
of  ruling  Christian  society  and  realizing  the  true  ideal 


286  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

conception  of  human  life.     Let  us  see,  then,  how  he  went 
about  his  work,  and  what  that  work  was. 

Gregory's  first  object  was  to  free  the  papacy  from 
the  control  of  the  Emperor,  who  had  ceased,  in  his 
opinion,  to  be  to  the  Church  at  least  what  he  was  de- 
signed to  be.  This  was  attempted  by  a  decree  of  the 
Council  held  at  Rome  in  1059,  under  Nicholas  II.,  before 
Gregory  VII.  became  Pope,  but  manifestly  prompted 
by  him.  This  decree  provided  that  hereafter  the  Pope 
should  be  elected  by  the  Cardinals,  and  that  neither  the 
Roman  populace  nor  the  Emperor  should  interfere  with 
the  choice  of  the  Church  so  expressed.  This  was  a  most 
important  step  in  the  theocratic  programme.  His  second 
object  when  he  became  Pope  (1073)  was  to  reform  the 
condition  of  the  Church  itself,  especially  as  affected  by 
two  evils  which  he  regarded  as  the  crying  evils  of  the 
time, — viz.,  simony,  and  the  marriage  of  the  clergy. 
In  regard  to  simony,  which  is  the  purchase  of  an  eccle- 
siastical preferment  or  office  for  money,  it  had  always 
been  considered,  as  already  stated,  one  of  the  grossest 
ecclesiastical  sins.  Owing  to  the  vast  wealth  of  the 
Church,  the  chief  offices  in  it,  and  especially  the  bishop- 
rics and  the  great  abbacies,  had  become  positions  of  great 
worldly  power  and  dignity,  their  occupants  being  re- 
garded throughout  Europe  as  on  the  same  social  level  as 
the  chief  feudal  nobles.  These  places  therefore,  as  was 
natural,  were  sought  after  with  the  greatest  eagerness  by 
the  ambitious  and  aspiring,  and  were  openly,  in  viola- 
tion of  the  canons  of  the  Church,  bought  and  sold  as  ii 


SIMONY,  AND    CELIBACY  OF  THE   CLERGY.  287 

they  had  been  lay  fiefs.  They  became  simply  feudal 
estates  under  another  name.  They  were  often  occupied 
by  persons  wholly  unfitted  for  the  performance  of  epis- 
copal functions.  Their  wealth,  and  the  peculiar  tenure 
by  which  they  held  their  estates,  made  the  bishops 
throughout  Western  Europe  almost  as  independent  of 
the  Popes  as  the  great  feudal  lords  were  of  the  king  or 
the  Emperor.  The  faithful  suffered  instead  of  deriving 
aid  and  comfort  from  such  bishops,  for  they  were  too 
often  called  upon  to  make  up  by  severe  exactions  the 
sums  paid  by  the  incumbents  for  these  places. 

In  regard  to  the  marriage  of  the  clergy,  although  it 
would  appear  that  the  practice  had  been  discouraged 
in  the  earlier  ages  of  the  Church,  and  even  possibly 
forbidden  by  the  canons,  yet  in  the  days  of  Gregory 
VII.  it  was  connived  at,  or  at  least  not  made  an  offence 
against  Church  discipline,  and  a  very  large  portion  of 
the  clergy,  particularly  in  Germany  and  Southern  Italy, 
were  married  men.  On  this  subject  there  had  long 
been  a  controversy  between  the  monks  and  the  secular 
clergy ;  but  it  was  not  until  the  time  of  Gregory  VII. 
that  the  monks  were  strong  enough  to  carry  out  their 
long-cherished  scheme  of  the  enforced  celibacy  of  the 
clergy  by  a  decree  of  the  Church.  There  are  many 
obvious  reasons  why  the  celibacy  of  the  priesthood  at 
that  time  was  the  true  policy  of  the  Church,  of  which 
we  need  mention  here  only  one,  and  that  is,  that  in  the 
feudal  age,  with  the  constant  tendency  then  existing  to 
make  everything  hereditary,  the  ministry  of  the  Church, 


288  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

instead  of  being  an  office  open  to  any  one,  no  matter 
what  his  origin,  who  had  a  true  vocation,  would  have 
become  gradually  the  heritage  of  certain  great  families, 
and  thus  would  have  been  established  an  aristocratic 
caste,  a  system  in  every  way  foreign  to  any  proper 
conception  of  Christianity. 

These  two  evils,  simony  and  a  married  clergy,  were 
regarded  by  Gregory,  doubtless,  not  only  as  crushing 
all  true  life  out  of  the  Church,  but  also  as  removing  the 
priesthood  from  that  ever-present  law  of  discipline  which 
he  deemed  essential  for  the  proper  performance  of  its 
work.  The  first  act  of  his  pontificate  (1073)  was  to 
obtain  from  a  Council  at  Rome  a  decree  not  merely  pro- 
hibiting simony  and  marriage  as  ecclesiastical  crimes,  but 
absolutely  invalidating  all  the  sacraments  performed  by 
simoniacal  or  married  priests,  thus  by  one  blow  removing 
from  the  priestly  office  thousands  of  those  who  had  up 
to  that  time  peaceably,  if  not  legally,  exercised  its  func- 
tions. It  is  not  easy  to  exaggerate  the  effect  of  such  a 
shock  as  this  anathema  on  the  existing  practice  through- 
out Europe.  But  Gregory  was  a  bold  man,  and,  whether 
he  was  fighting  with  his  own  order  who  legally  owed  him 
obedience,  or  with  the  Emperor  to  whom  legally  he  owed 
obedience,  his  courage  in  maintaining  his  theories  never 
wavered. 

The  quarrel  which  arose  from  the  attempts  of  Gregory 
to  accomplish  his  object  by  which  he  is  best  known  in 
history  is  that  with  the  Emperor  Henry  IV.,  generally 
known  as  "the  War  of  the  Investitures."'  The  scheme 


TWOFOLD  POSITION  OF  THE  BISHOPS.  289 

conceived  by  the  Pope  of  ruling  Europe  by  a  theocracy 
was  begun  by  these  measures.  We  have  seen  how  the 
clergy  were  brought  under  his  obedience  and  discipline 
by  the  removal  of  the  two  great  evils  which  he  regarded 
as  the  principal  obstacles  to  that  design.  The  dispute 
about  the  new  discipline,  however,  soon  involved  other 
questions  of  a  more  general  kind,  especially  that  of  the 
Investitures,  properly  so  called,  in  which  it  was  to  be 
settled  whether  the  bishops  and  other  high  Church  dig- 
nitaries should  be  appointed  or  invested  with  their  office 
by  the  Emperor  or  the  Pope. 

The  decision  of  this  question  was  complicated  by  the 
twofold  position  held  by  the  bishops  in  the  feudal 
system,  which  was  then  the  universal  system  of  gov- 
ernment throughout  Europe.  They  were  not  merely 
spiritual  pastors  or  overseers  as  they  are  now,  fulfilling 
only  the  spiritual  functions  of  their  office,  and  hence 
owing  obedience  to  the  Pope  as  the  head  of  the  Church. 
They  were,  besides,  usually  great  feudal  lords,  holding 
in  right  of  their  sees  large  lauded  estates  under  the 
same  conditions  as  other  feudal  barons  held  theirs. 
Because  these  estates  were  inseparably  annexed  to  their 
sees,  it  was  necessary,  according  to  the  feudal  theory, 
that  they  should  be  invested  with  them  in  the  feudal 
form  by  the  overlord  or  sovereign.  Practically,  the  re- 
sult was  that  the  bishops  became  the  nominees  of  the 
king  or  the  Emperor.  This  practice  was  regarded  by 
Gregory  and  his  successors  as  encroaching  upon  the 

rights  of  the  Church,  with  whom,  it  was  claimed,  ought 

26 


290  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

to  rest  the  exclusive  power  of  appointing  bishops.  Much 
has  been  and  may  be  said  on  both  sides  of  this  question. 
If  it  be  clear  that  the  bishop,  as  responsible  to  the  Pope 
for  the  performance  of  the  purely  spiritual  or  ecclesias- 
tical functions  of  his  office,  should  be  appointed  by  him, 
it  was  also  natural  that  the  kings  and  the  Emperor  should 
insist  that  those  who  had  the  use  and  revenue  of  one-half 
of  the  lands  within  their  territories  should  not  be  any 
more  independent  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  lord  para- 
mount than  those  who  held  the  other  half  of  those  lands. 
It  was  impossible,  according  to  the  mediaeval  concep- 
tion, to  separate  the  office  of  bishop  from  the  possession 
of  the  lauds  by  which  his  see  was  endowed.  Hence  the 
quarrel  of  the  Investitures, — the  Popes  claiming  the 
power  of  the  appointment  of  the  bishops  and  the  prac- 
tical control  of  the  lands  attached  to  the  sees,  and  the 
Emperor  and  kings  being  unwilling  to  give  up  the 
patronage  of  the  Church,  or  to  abandon  so  potent  a 
means  of  keeping  the  clergy  serving  in  their  territories 
within  their  control,  as  the  feudal  subjection  of  their 
lands.  The  investiture  was  so  called  from  the  feudal 
symbolical  form  of  conferring  an  office.  This  form  in 
the  case  of  a  bishop  consisted  of  a  gift  to  him,  at  the 
time  he  took  possession  of  his  see  and  swore  allegiance 
to  the  civil  authority,  of  a  ring,  which  symbolized  his 
marriage  to  the  Church,  of  a  staff  or  crosier,  which  de- 
noted his  pastoral  authority,  and  a  touch  of  the  sceptre, 
by  which  the  territorial  possessions  of  the  see  were  sup- 
posed to  be  conferred  on  him. 


HENRY  IV.  EMPEROR.  291 

Henry  IV.  was  Emperor  of  Germany  at  the  time 
when  this  question  assumed  great  practical  importance 
owing  to  the  efforts  of  Gregory  to  suppress  simony  and 
to  enforce  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy.  These  reforms 
which  he  had  so  much  at  heart  could  not,  of  course,  be 
carried  out  as  long  as  the  power  of  the  investiture  of 
the  bishops  was  in  the  hands  of  lay  sovereigns.  Henry, 
of  the  Franconian  line,  was  a  mere  boy  when  he  became 
Emperor.  His  early  life  was  somewhat  dissolute,  and 
he  had  more  than  the  common  measure  of  trouble  with 
his  subjects,  especially  the  turbulent  nobles  of  Saxony. 
His  power  as  Emperor  in  Germany  for  a  long  time 
was  merely  nominal,  and  doubtless  during  his  reign  the 
Pope  took  advantage  of  his  weakness  to  assert  boldly 
the  pretensions  of  the  Church  within  his  German  do- 
minions. At  first  Gregory  (who  from  the  beginning 
seems  to  have  assumed  the  position  of  arbiter  and  dic- 
tator of  the  Imperial  policy  towards  his  subjects  both 
in  Church  and  in  State)  scolded  the  Emperor  for  the 
irregularities  of  his  life  very  much  as  if  he  had  been  a 
naughty  child.  He  next  tried  to  induce  him  to  give  up 
simoniacal  practices  in  the  appointment  of  bishops,  and 
to  degrade  those  who  had  obtained  preferments  in  that 
way.  Because  the  Emperor  and  the  German  prelates 
hesitated  to  act  in  this  important  matter  rapidly  enough 
to  suit  the  impatient  zeal  of  Gregory,  he  convoked  a 
Council  at  Rome  in  the  year  1075,  in  which  he  abro- 
gated by  a  decree  the  claim  and  practice  of  the  investi- 
ture of  the  clergy  of  the  endowments  of  their  offices  by 


292  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  sovereign  whose  subjects  they  were.  By  this  decree 
those  who  gave  and  those  who  received  such  investiture, 
both  the  layman  and  the  ecclesiastic,  were  equally  de- 
posed from  any  authority  hitherto  attached  to  the  offices 
they  held. 

This  decree  made  a  revolution  in  the  whole  feudal 
system  throughout  Europe,  as  far  as  it  affected  the  rela- 
tions of  the  possessors  of  Church  lands  to  the  State 
control.  In  the  Empire  it  annulled  the  power  of  the 
Emperor  over  half  his  subjects  who  were  landholders; 
and,  indeed,  if  the  theory  had  been  fully  carried  out, 
the  Pope  must  have  become  the  temporal  liege  lord  of 
half  the  world,  as  he  was  already  the  spiritual  father  of 
the  whole  of  it.  This  decree  was  met  by  Henry  by  the 
act  of  a  synod  composed  of  German  prelates  deposing 
the  Pope.  Whereupon  the  Pope,  of  course,  retaliated  by 
deposing  and  excommunicating  Henry.  Such  a  sentence 
in  those  days  had  a  terrible  import.  Henry,  deserted 
by  his  followers  as  an  excommunicate  person,  submitted, 
or  feigned  submission.  He  sought  the  Pope  at  the  castle 
of  Canossa,  among  the  Apennines,  and  there,  as  I  have 
related,  in  the  garb  of  a  penitent,  abjuring  the  errors 
which  the  Pope  had  condemned,  and  promising  amend- 
ment, he  was  admitted  by  the  haughty  Pontiff,  after  the 
most  painful  and  degrading  scene  of  humiliation,  to  his 
presence,  and. received  absolution  for  his  crime.  But  he 
soon  afterwards  found  himself  strong  enough  to  scorn 
the  Pope's  mercy,  and  again  set  him  at  defiance,  chased 
him  from  Rome  and  forced  him  to  take  refuge  with 


CONCORDAT  OF  WORMS,  293 

the  Normans,  and  was  again  excommunicated.  The  Pope 
in  his  extremity  never  yielded  in  the  slightest  degree  his 
lofty  pretensions.  "  No,"  said  the  brave  old  man,  as  he 
breathed  his  last  at  Salerno:  "I  have  loved  justice  and 
hated  iniquity,  and  therefore  I  die  in  exile." 

But  the  quarrel  did  not  die  with  him.  It  continued 
under  successive  Popes  and  successive  Emperors  with 
increasing  bitterness,  involving  all  the  horror  and  con- 
fusion of  civil  war  in  Germany,  a  conflict  in  which 
the  whole  machinery  of  the  higher  Church  discipline — 
deposition,  excommunication,  and  interdict — was  freely 
used  for  nearly  fifty  years.  At  last,  in  1122,  by  the 
Concordat  of  Worms,  as  it  was  called,  it  was  agreed 
between  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor  of  that  time  that 
the  clergy  should  be  free  to  elect  their  bishop,  but  that 
the  representative  of  the  Emperor  should  be  present  at 
the  election ;  that  the  Pope  might  invest  with  the  spirit- 
ual office  under  the  symbol  of  the  ring  and  the  crosier, 
and  that  the  Emperor  should  only  invest  the  bishop 
elect  with  the  possession  of  the  estates  attached  to  the 
see  by  a  touch  of  the  sceptre.  This  has  the  appearance 
of  an  indecisive  battle;  but  practically,  as  subsequent 
history  shows,  the  Pope  was  the  victor. 

The  pretensions  of  the  Popes  to  authority  over  the 
sovereigns  of  Europe  increased  in  extravagance  until 
the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century.  They  not  only  con- 
sidered it  their  duty  to  defend  the  rights  of  the  Church, 
according  to  their  theory  of  those  rights,  from  encroach- 
ments by  the  civil  power,  but  they  claimed  to  be  universal 

25* 


294  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

censores  morum  throughout  Europe,  using  the  discipline 
of  the  Church  unsparingly  to  punish  the  greatest  sover- 
eigns whom  they  judged  guilty  of  offences  against  the 
Church.  Nor  did  they  claim  jurisdiction  only  over 
oifences  such  as  these,  but  a  new  crime  was  discovered  in 
the  acts  of  the  temporal  sovereigns  which  was  often  re- 
garded as  the  most  flagitious  of  all  and  one  to  be  visited 
by  the  severest  and  swiftest  punishment, — that  of  calling 
into  question  the  papal  jurisdiction  over  kings. 

For  a  long  period,  whenever  the  Pope  or  the  sover- 
eign happened  to  be  a  man  of  strong  will,  this  conflict 
between  the  papal  authority  and  that  of  the  lay  rulers 
throughout  Europe  broke  out  afresh.  Thus,  we  have 
the  quarrels  between  Hadrian  IV.  and  Frederick  Bar- 
barossa  about  the  Lombard  cities  and  their  respective 
claims  to  the  kingdom  of  Naples ;  the  controversy  be- 
tween Henry  II.  of  England  and  Thomas  Becket  con- 
cerning the  exemption  of  the  clergy  in  England  from 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  civil  courts;  the  long  struggle 
between  Gregory  IX.  and  the  Emperor  Frederick  II., 
between  Innocent  III.  and  Philip  Augustus  of  France, 
where  the  Pope  appears  in  the  grand  part  of  the  champion 
of  the  sanctity  of  marriage;  the  excommunication  and 
deposition  of  John  of  England ;  and,  later,  the  ignoble 
strife  between  Boniface  VIII.  and  Philip  le  Bel  of 
France.  Here  is  a  strange  jumble  of  subjects  of  quarrel 
arising  between  two  persons  because  one  claimed  to  ex- 
ercise the  spiritual  and  the  other  the  civil  authority.  In 
many  of  these  controversies  the  Popes  were  not  only 


CHURCH  OPINION  OF  THE   TIME.         295 

judges  but  law-givers  also,  creating  the  offence  (which 
was  too  often  an  alleged  denial  of  their  power)  which 
they  undertook  to  try.  In  both  cases  they  claimed 
supreme  and  absolute  power,  the  exercise  of  which  they 
insisted  was  essential  to  the  maintenance  of  truth  and 
justice  in  that  wild  age.  The  medicine  might  sometimes 
be  harsh  and  bitter,  as  Innocent  III.  once  said,  but  the 
disease  was  deep-rooted. 

All  these  acts  of  the  Popes  seem  now  to  us  the 
strangest  usurpations ;  but  it  is  very  clear  that  such  was 
not  the  verdict  of  the  Christian  conscience  as  to  most  of 
them  at  the  time  they  were  done.  It  is  worth  consider- 
ing how  the  Pope  enforced  these  extraordinary  claims  to 
authority  which  he  made  in  an  age  when  brute  force 
alone  compelled  obedience  to  any  other  form  of  rule. 
He  lacked  not  means  which  proved  very  effective.  Pro- 
longed disobedience  to  the  Pope's  decrees  by  the  civil 
rulers,  which  extended  to  almost  every  conceivable  case 
of  public  scandal  or  of  violation  of  the  law  of  the 
Church,  was  uniformly  punished  in  the  last  resort  by 
those  most  terrible  weapons  of  the  ecclesiastical  armory, 
excommunication,  interdict,  and  deposition.  To  a  pri- 
vate person  excommunication  in  those  days  was  a  fearful 
reality,  for  it  made  him  literally  an  outcast,  not  merely 
depriving  him  of  those  sacraments  of  the  Church  which 
formed  the  life-blood  of  the  man  of  the  mediaeval  age, 
but  cutting  him  off  also  from  all  those  relations  with  his 
fellows  which  social  life  was  instituted  chiefly  to  promote. 
In  the  case  of  kings  and  sovereigns,  not  only  did  they 


296  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

suffer  the  same  privations  as  individuals,  but  their  au- 
thority was  taken  away  from  them,  their  subjects  were 
released  from  their  obedience,  and  often  some  one,  gen- 
erally a  rival,  considered-  by  the  Church  as  more  worthy, 
was  placed  in  their  stead.  Not  only  were  these  unfor- 
tunate sovereigns  made  to  suffer  as  individuals  and  as 
kings,  but  what  is  technically  called  an  interdict  was 
laid  upon  their  dominions,  by  which  the  Church  and  all 
its  sacraments  and  ministrations,  which  formed,  as  I  have 
said,  the  breath  of  life  in  the  Middle  Age,  were  for  the 
time  withdrawn  from  the  people  who  had  the  misfortune 
to  be  the  subjects  of  one  who  had  disobeyed  the  Church. 
This  penalty,  in  days  when  to  speak  of  politics  as  simply 
a  matter  of  secular  concern  would  have  been  regarded 
not  merely  as  heresy  but  as  an  absurdity,  seldom  failed, 
when  persistently  applied,  to  tame  the  wildest  and  most 
lawless  of  those  Teutonic  warriors  whose  one  weak  point 
was  the  ease  with  which  they  were  controlled  by  their 
superstitious  terrors.  We  think  of  Henry  IV.  of  Ger- 
many, of  Henry  II.  of  England,  of  Philip  Augustus  of 
France,  of  the  Emperor  Frederick  II.,  and  even  of  the 
English  King  John,  as  bold  men ;  but  they  were  no  match 
for  the  crowned  priest  who  sat  in  St.  Peter's  chair,  and 
they  one  and  all  submitted  to  his  orders,  so  that  their 
kingdoms  might  be  relieved  from  an  interdict  and  them- 
selves from  excommunication. 

We  may,  I  think,  search  history  in  vain  to  find  any 
moral  power  which  has  had  in  the  affairs  of  mankind 
a  force  equal  to  that  of  excommunication  as  it  was 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  POWER.  297 

employed  against  civil  rulers  during  the  Middle  Age ; 
and,  what  seems  very  extraordinary,  but  what  is  per- 
haps the  true  explanation  of  the  frequent  use  of  this 
terrible  punishment,  its  application  seems  to  have  been 
approved  by  the  Christian  opinion  of  the  age.  The 
authority  of  the  Church  was  trusted  both  to  define  and 
to  punish  the  offences  of  those  who  were  supposed  to 
be  above  the  reach  of  the  ordinary  laws.  While  the 
validity  of  pretensions  such  as  these  was  recognized,  the 
claims  of  the  Church  to  interference  in  the  details  of 
civil  government  were  admitted  on  the  same  principle. 

The  Canon  or  Church  law  recognized  in  everything 
the  superiority  of  the  ecclesiastical  to  the  temporal  au- 
thority. It  insisted  upon  the  exemption  of  the  clergy 
from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  civil  courts;  it  permitted 
the  Church  authorities  to  dispense,  for  cause  shown,  with 
its  own  prohibitions  in  regard  to  marriages  within  cer- 
tain degrees  of  affinity,  and  with  the  obligations  of  the 
most  sacred  oaths ;  it  permitted  the  Pope  to  give  eccle- 
siastical preferments  of  value  to  non-residents,  and  to 
such  an  extent  was  this  practice  carried  that  in  the  time 
of  Henry  III.  in  England  her  Church  estates  seem  to 
have  been  a  free  pasture  for  Italian  priests;  moreover,  it 
taxed  the  clergy,  who  were  exempt  from  State  taxation, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  court  of  Rome.  This  last  abuse 
seems  to  have  done  more  to  raise  a  spirit  of  resistance  to 
the  papal  power  than  any  of  its  acts  during  the  Middle 
Age.  The  clergy,  with  here  and  there  a  notable  excep- 
tion, such  as  Stephen  Langton  and  Robert  Grossetete  in 


298  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

England,  looked  on  with  calmness,  if  not  with  approba- 
tion, when  they  saw  the  authority  of  their  own  sovereigns 
defied  by  the  Pope,  but  when  they  themselves  were  pil- 
laged under  a  claim  of  the  same  power  they  were  disposed 
to  regard  their  own  spiritual  sovereign  as  an  arbitrary 
oppressor.  The  wealth  of  the  clergy — that  is,  of  the 
higher  dignitaries  of  the  Church — and  the  corruption  of 
the  court  of  Rome  were  universally  regarded  at  the  close 
of  the  thirteenth  century  as  grave  abuses,  and  the  indig- 
nation they  excited  found  utterance  first  among  the  priests 
themselves, — Wyclif,  Huss,  and  Jerome  of  Prague, — 
and  amidst  sectaries  such  as  the  Albigenses  and  the 
Cathari;  and  from  them,  and  from  men  like  them,  came 
the  mutteriugs  of  that  storm  which  was  to  burst  in  its 
full  force  on  the  papacy  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

But  for  the  present  the  power  of  the  Popes  was  prac- 
tically unchecked.  The  pretensions  of  Boniface  VIII., 
who  was  the  last  but  one  of  the  Popes  who  used  his 
prerogative  for  the  deposition  of  kings  in  the  genuine 
mediaeval  fashion,  were  more  extravagant  than  those  of 
any  of  his  predecessors.  He  insisted  not  merely  that 
he  had  a  right  to  interfere  with  those  acts  of  Philip  le 
Bel  which  concerned  the  position  of  the  clergy  in  France, 
but  also  that  it  was  his  business  to  compel  Philip  to  re- 
form the  government  of  France  in  all  respects ;  and  for 
that  purpose  he  actually  summoned  an  assembly  of  the 
French  bishops  to  meet  at  Rome  to  dictate  to  the  king, 
under  the  inspiration  of  the  Pope,  the  policy  he  should 
pursue  in  the  government  of  his  own  kingdom.  He 


THE  BABYLONIAN  CAPTIVITY.  299 

claimed  that  all  persons,  of  whatever  rank,  should  obey 
this  summons,  and  for  this  reason  :  "  Such  is  our  pleas- 
ure, who,  by  Divine  permission,  govern  the  world."  It 
is  hard  to  find  anything  to  admire  in  the  character 
of  Philip  le  Bel ;  but  submission  of  his  authority  to  a 
foreign  potentate  was  not  one  of  his  many  weaknesses. 
This  extraordinary  act  of  Boniface  was  met  by  the  king 
by  a  convocation  of  the  first  States-General  which  ever 
met  in  France  (1304),  a  body  which  denounced  the 
Pope's  pretensions  and  insisted  upon  what  afterwards 
became  a  fundamental  axiom  of  the  Gallican  Church 
down  to  the  Revolution, — the  entire  independence  of 
the  temporal  power  of  the  French  kings  of  the  spiritual 
power  of  the  Pope. 

Shortly  after  the  power  and  with  it  the  pretensions  of 
the  papacy  to  a  supreme  and  universal  jurisdiction  in 
temporal  affairs  was  completely  broken  by  its  transfer 
from  Rome  to  Avignon  (1305),  where  it  was  established 
for  nearly  seventy  years,  a  period  known  in  Church 
history  as  the  Babylonian  captivity.  In  that  city  it 
ceased,  in  the  eyes  of  a  very  large  part  of  Christendom, 
to  possess  that  sacred  cosmopolitan  character  which  no 
doubt  had  had  much  to  do  with  the  veneration  and 
respect  with  which  its  catholic  authority  had  been  re- 
garded. At  Avignon  the  Popes  were  always  French, 
the  majority  of  the  Cardinals  were  French,  and  the 
whole  policy  of  the  papacy  was  manifestly  under  French 
influence,  while  the  rapacity  of  the  Popes  was  even 
greater  than  it  had  been  at  Rome.  The  prestige  of 


300  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

Rome  once  lost,  the  whole  tone  of  the  head  of  the 
Church  changed.  The  abuses  which  had  been  com- 
plained of  still  remained ;  but  at  least  one  great  ob- 
stacle, a  portentous  one  in  the  imagination  of  mankind, 
which  had  hitherto  overshadowed  all  hope  of  reform, 
— the  awful  majesty  of  Rome,  and  what  was  due  to  it, 
— existed  no  longer. 

Besides,  the  foundation  on  which  the  undisputed  su- 
premacy of  the  Pope  rested,  the  visible  organic  catholic 
unity  of  the  Church,  was  crumbling.  That  unity  was 
threatened  by  what  is  known  in  ecclesiastical  history  as 
the  great  schism,  which  occurred  in  1377,  when  one  party 
of  the  Cardinals  who  had  returned  to  Rome  chose  as 
Pope  an  Italian,  who  took  the  title  of  Urban  VI.,  and 
another  party,  who  were  supposed  to  be  in  the  French 
interest  (on  the  plea  that  the  election  of  Urban  had  been 
forced  on  the  College  of  Cardinals  by  the  Roman  popu- 
lace), chose  a  Frenchman,  who  was  called  Clement  VI. 
Urban  established  himself  at  Rome ;  Clement,  under  the 
protection  of  the  French  king,  at  Avignon.  Each  had 
his  strong  partisans ;  neither  would  yield  ;  and  hence  the 
scandalous  picture  was  presented  of  two  Popes  claiming 
an  equal  share  in  the  indivisible  authority  of  the  head- 
ship of  the  Church.  The  Roman  party  elected  three 
Pontiffs  in  succession  to  Urban,  and  the  French,  upon 
the  death  of  Clement,  elected  in  due  form  his  successor. 
This  schism  rent  the  Church  in  twain,  the  Empire, 
England,  and  the  nations  of  the  North  adhering  to 
the  Italian  Pope,  while  France,  Spain,  Scotland,  and 


COUNCIL   OF  CONSTANCE.  301 

Sicily  persisted  in  recognizing  the  French  one.  This 
schism,  of  course,  resulted  in  the  weakening  of  the 
papacy,  especially  in  its  claims  to  supremacy  over  the 
civil  power. 

The  Councils  which  were  held  in  order  to  heal  the 
dissensions — those  of  Pisa,  of  Constance,  and  of  Basle 
— took  the  opportunity  not  only  of  limiting  the  preten- 
sions of  the  papacy  itself,  but  of  urging  the  necessity  of 
the  reform  of  many  of  the  abuses  by  which  it  had  be- 
come degraded,  and  which  all  parties  at  the  time  agreed 
in  thinking  had  brought  great  scandal  on  the  Church. 
The  Council  of  Constance  was  composed  not  only  of 
bishops,  but  of  the  chiefs  of  monasteries,  of  the  ambas- 
sadors from  many  Christian  princes,  and  of  a  multitude 
of  doctors  of  law.  Among  other  things,  it  decreed 
that  this  Council  had,  as  a  General  Council,  by  Divine 
right  an  authority  to  which  every  rank,  even  the  papal, 
must  submit  in  matters  of  faith  and  in  measures  for  the 
reform  of  the  Church.  There  is,  I  believe,  some  doubt 
of  the  regularity  of  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance, or  at  least  of  their  being  universally  binding  on 
the  Church,  but  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  its  ses- 
sions formed  an  epoch  since  which  the  arrogant  claims 
of  the  papacy  to  the  control  of  the  civil  power  as  it  had 
been  exercised  by  so  many  of  the  medieval  Popes  were 
no  longnr  made.  The  thunder  of  excommunication  was 
still  often  heard,  but  in  faint  mutterings,  and  it  ceased 
to  carry  with  it  awe  and  terror  as  of  old.  Europe  once 

more  acknowledged  a  common  Pope,  but  the  power  of 

26 


302  MEDIEVAL   HISTORY. 

Gregory,  of  Innocent,  and  of  Boniface  was  gone  with 
the  age  in  which  they  lived. 

A  reaction  in  the  policy  of  the  principal  sovereigns  of 
Europe  in  regard  to  papal  claims  is  very  striking  during 
the  first  half  of  the  fourteenth  century.  The  rulers  of 
the  world  seem  with  common  consent  at  last  to  have 
made  up  their  minds  not  to  degrade  the  papacy,  but 
to  confine  its  jurisdiction  within  reasonable  bounds.  I 
have  already  spoken  of  the  attitude  of  France  in  the 
controversy  between  Philip  le  Bel  and  Boniface,  when 
the  National  Assembly  of  the  country,  the  States-Gen- 
eral, answered  the  appeal  of  their  king  by  the  declara- 
tion that  the  sovereign  power  of  the  monarch  in  France 
is  such  that  none  is  above  it  save  God  alone.  This  was 
in  1302.  A  few  years  later,  when  Benedict  XII.  per- 
sisted in  maintaining  the  excommunication  which  had 
been  pronounced  by  his  predecessor  against  Louis  of 
Bavaria,  the  German  Electoral  Princes,  three  of  whom 
were  the  foremost  prelates  of  the  country,  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  choose  Louis  Emperor  notwithstanding  this  im- 
pediment, declaring  that  every  election  of  Emperor  was 
valid  without  the  'confirmation  of  the  Pope.  So  in 
England,  in  the  reign  of  Edward  III.,  the  intolerable 
exactions  from  which  the  people  suffered,  owing  to  the 
rapacity  of  the  court  of  Rome,  induced  Parliament,  as 
we  have  seen,  to  prohibit  the  admission  or  execution  of 
papal  briefs  or  bulls  within  the  realm  by  the  statute  of 
prsemunire,  and  to  deny  the  papal  claim  to  dispose  of 
ecclesiastical  benefices  by  the  statute  of  provisors.  From 


THE  POPES  AS  ITALIAN  PRINCES.        303 

this  time  forward  the  Popes  made  no  effort  to  maintain 
their  universal  dominion  by  the  means  which  Gregory 
VII.  and  so  many  of  his  successors  had  used. 

Their  ambition,  it  is  true,  was  still  directed  towards 
schemes  of  temporal  sovereignty,  but  the  sphere  in 
which  it  was  conspicuous  was  Italy,  and  not  the  uni- 
versal domain  of  Christendom.  In  that  country  they 
made  the  interests  of  the  papacy  subservient  to  the  ele- 
vation of  their  kindred  in  rank  and  wealth.  They  were 
engaged,  many  of  them,  in  all  the  intrigues  of  the 
profligate  princes  of  Italy  to  secure  the  territorial  rank 
of  the  members  of  their  families  in  the  bad  age  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  The  great  scandal  of  the  court  of 
Rome  in  those  days  was  the  nepotism  of  the  Popes. 
The  awe  and  veneration  which  their  character  had  in- 
spired, even  when  they  were  most  despotic  in  their 
schemes  for  exalting  the  authority  of  the  Church,  grad- 
ually faded  out  of  men's  minds  when  they  found  their 
policy  guided  by  anxiety  about  Italian  politics,  and 
when  they  could  so  degrade  their  office  as  to  engage 
in  a  vulgar  strife  in  that  country  with  men  like  the 
Visconti  and  the  Sforzas  and  the  Aragonese  kings  of 
the  two  Sicilies. 

The  personal  character  of  most  of  the  Popes  in  the 
fifteenth  century  further  degraded  the  great  office  they 
held.  Sixtus  IV.  and  Alexander  VI.  (Borgia)  are  men 
in  whom  we  seek  in  vain  for  any  of  the  priestly  virtues 
or  any  of  the  priestly  courage  of  the  earlier  Popes.  So 
sunken  had  the  power  of  the  papacy  become  before  the 


MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 


close  of  the  fifteenth  century  that  when  Charles  VIII. 
of  France  undertook  his  expedition  against  Naples  in 
1494  he  paid  no  heed  to  the  alliance  which  the  Pope 
had  made  with  his  enemy  the  king  of  that  country,  but 
marched  through  Italy  straight  to  the  gates  of  Rome. 
He  forced  the  Pope,  whom  he  found  in  abject  terror  at 
his  approach,  not  only  to  abandon  an  alliance  with  his 
enemies,  but  to  recognize  his  claims  as  heir  to  the  Duke 
of  Aujou,  and  to  give  him  feudal  investiture  of  the 
kingdom  of  Naples,  the  suzerainty  of  which  the  Popes 
had  long  held.  It  is  true  that  this  Pope  was  a  Borgia; 
but  an  act  like  this  shows  the  decline  not  merely  of  the 
character  but  of  the  power  of  the  great  mediaeval  Popes. 
It  must  not  be  thought  that  because  the  Popes  declined 
in  public  estimation  the  Church  in  the  same  way  lost  its 
vigor.  No  bad  examples  and  no  worthless  lives  of  individ- 
ual Popes  could  root  out  the  beliefs  which  had  been  grow- 
ing in  the  mind  of  Europe  for  more  than  a  thousand  years. 
The  perpetuity  of  the  Church,  notwithstanding  the  un- 
worthiness  of  so  many  of  its  supreme  Pontiffs,  has  often 
been  spoken  of  as  a  striking  evidence  of  its  Divine  origin. 
The  sacredness  of  the  priest  was  inalienable,  indelible, 
altogether  irrespective  of  his  life,  his  habits,  his  personal 
holiness  or  unholiness.  There  might  be  secret  murmurs 
at  the  avarice,  pride,  licentiousness  of  the  priest ;  public 
opinion  might  even  in  some  cases  boldly  hold  him  up  to 
shame  and  obloquy ;  still,  he  was  priest,  bishop,  Pope ; 
his  sacraments  lost  none  of  their  efficacy,  and  his  verdict 
of  condemnation  or  of  absolution  was  equally  valid. 


CHAPTER   XL 

THE  STRUGGLE   FOB  ITALIAN  NATIONALITY. 

THE  growth  of  a  strong  sentiment  of  nationality  was 
one  of  the  most  important  consequences  of  the  conflict 
of  social  forces  during  the  Middle  Age.  As  the  result 
of  this  evolution  is  one  of  the  most  original  and  charac- 
teristic features  of  our  modern  life,  the  process  calls  for 
careful  study.  It  seems,  at  first  sight,  strange  that  from 
feudalism,  an  epoch  which  we  are  accustomed  to  regard 
as  one  essentially  marked  by  local  and  separatist  tenden- 
cies and  possessing  none  of  that  power  of  cohesion  which 
is  essential  to  our  ideal  of  a  national  life,  the  outgrowth 
should  be  an  opposite  condition  of  society,  in  which 
monarchy,  centralization,  and  an  intensely  national  spirit 
became  the  dominant  principles.  The  contrast  between 
the  two  eras  in  this  respect  is  very  striking,  and  the 
change  is  due  to  the  gradual  silent  influence  of  common 
ideas  germinating  in  its  soil,  weakening,  as  the  Middle 
Age  grew  older,  the  foundations,  and  gradually  crum- 
bling away  the  external  forms  which  suited  the  time, 
and  substituting  for  them  those  better  expressing  the 
changed  condition  of  feeling.  We  have  spoken  of  some 
of  those  influences  in  describing  the  course  of  medieval 
life  in  the  principal  countries  of  Europe.  They  all  had 

at  least  this  general  tendency,  that  they  bred  discontent 

26*  305 


306  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

and  taught  the  people  throughout  Western  Europe  some 
common  lessons  concerning  the  improvement  of  their 
condition.  To  them  any  form  of  government  was  pref- 
erable to  feudalism.  Local  self-government,  as  estab- 
lished in  the  free  cities,  was  only  a  partial  remedy.  The 
kings  and  the  free  towns  united  to  check  the  power  of 
the  feudal  nobles;  and  from  this  strange  combination 
has  been  developed  a  strong  sentiment  of  nationality 
founded  upon  affinities  of  race  and  neighborhood. 

This  sentiment  as  it  grew  stronger  not  only  destroyed 
feudalism,  but  it  has  become  one  of  the  most  energetic 
forces  in  the  government  of  the  world.  Do  not  let  us 
mistake  the  meaning  of  this  sentiment  of  nationality, 
lest  we  should  be  unable  to  explain  the  cause  of  its  pro- 
digious power.  It  does  not  mean  that  a  mere  aggrega- 
tion of  great  numbers  of  human  beings  in  a  large  district 
necessarily  promotes  the  improvement  of  the  race,  or 
that  such  has  ever  been  the  belief  of  any  portion  of  it. 
Such  mere  crowding  together  was  the  case  in  Babylon 
and  in  other  populous  districts  in  the  East  in  antiquity. 
Vast  multitudes  were  there  enclosed,  so  to  speak,  in 
huge  pens;  but  they  were  only  like  dumb  cattle  driven, 
and  the  more  easily  driven  because  they  formed  an  un- 
organized mass.  But  the  true  sentiment  of  nationality 
is  an  ineradicable,  vital,  organic  force,  almost  crushed 
out  by  the  necessities  of  the  Roman  Imperial  system 
and  feudal  rule,  but  reappearing  in  our  modern  life  with 
such  power  that  to  us  all  that  is  best  in  life  and  civili- 
zation is  inconceivable  unless  the  means  of  preserving 


THE  SENTIMENT  OF  NATIONALITY.     307 

both  are  found  in  the  nation.  It  has  nothing  to  do,  and 
is  often  in  direct  conflict,  with  that  love  of  conquest 
which  has  stirred  men  like  Charlemagne  and  Louis 
XIV.  and  Napoleon  to  annex  countries  of  different 
races  and  civilizations  to  their  own.  When,  however, 
such  men  fight  for  the  influence  of  the  race  to  which 
they  belong,  and  to  extend  the  power  of  the  nation  as 
representing  that  race,  they  are  its  true  representatives : 
their  conquests  stir  the  passions  of  their  people,  and  they 
are  supported  by  their  strength. 

Modern  history  is  so  full  of  illustrations  of  the  work- 
ing of  this  principle  that  it  seems  almost  a  political  in- 
stinct. Ever  since  the  germs  of  the  three  great  nations 
of  modern  Europe — France,  Germany,  and  Italy — were 
planted  by  the  treaty  of  Verdun,  in  843,  on  the  division 
of  Charlemagne's  dominions  among  his  descendants, 
the  tendency  towards  the  consolidation  of  each  of  these 
three  countries  into  separate  and  strong  nationalities  has 
been,  notwithstanding  the  intensely  unnational  charac- 
ter of  feudalism,  incessantly  active,  so  that  it  may  be 
regarded  as  a  powerful  agent  in  European  politics  for 
more  than  a  thousand  years.  In  each  of  these  coun- 
tries the  sentiment  has  dictated  their  policy,  internal 
and  external,  and,  whatever  else  has  changed  in  them, 
it  has  proved  a  force  in  government  always  ineradicable, 
persistent,  and  aggressive.  Through  countless  struggles 
the  instinct  of  nationality  in  each  has  forced  its  way  and 
gained  at  last  its  triumph.  The  nationality  of  France 
was  established  on  a  solid  basis  in  the  time  of  Louis 


308  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

XIV.,  which  has  never  been  since  shaken,  notwith- 
standing all  the  changes  in  the  form  of  its  government. 
Germany  and  Italy  have  each  become  a  nation  in  our 
own  day.  Germany  was  proclaimed  a  true  Empire 
of  people  of  German  race  and  speech  (very  unlike  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire)  in  1871,  after  her  marvellous 
conquests  in  France,  in  that  very  hall  of  the  palace  at 
Versailles  the  walls  of  which  are  covered  with  pictures 
representing  the  triumph  of  the  French  race  over  the 
German.  Italy  became  a  nation  in  any  true  sense  since 
the  downfall  of  the  Western  Roman  Empire  in  476, 
when  Victor  Emmanuel,  in  our  own  day,  brought  its 
various  provinces  under  his  sway  and  ruled  from  Rome 
what  was  truly  Italy, — that  is,  a  country  extending  from 
the  Alps  to  the  Adriatic. 

I  propose  to  speak  of  the  history  of  Italy  with  refer- 
ence to  this  unity  and  nationality  which  have  so  recently 
become  fails  accomplis.  I  must  try  to  show  that  this 
sentiment  of  nationality  was  really  at  all  times  the 
ruling  idea  of  the  best  minds  of  all  parties  in  that 
country,  as  in  other  countries  of  Europe,  and  to  explain 
the  formidable  nature  of  the  obstacles  which  prevented 
that  idea  from  becoming  a  practical  reality  in  the  form 
of  a  national  government  until  our  own  time.  The  real 
history  of  Italy  I  suppose  to  be  an  account  of  her  ter- 
rible struggle  to  reach  such  a  national  unity  ever  since 
the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire.  Her  kingdom  is  the 
last-born  of  modern  States,  but  the  history  of  her  early 
and  persistent  struggles  to  found  it  is  most  interesting 


ITALY  THE  PREY  OF  THE  SPOILER.     3Q9 

and  instructive.  When  we  think  of  it,  we  recall  the 
famous  lines  of  Lord  Byron,  modelled  upon  a  verse  of 
one  of  her  own  poets : 

"  Italia  I  O  Italia  !  thou  who  hast 
The  fatal  gift  of  beauty,  which  became 
A  funeral  dower  of  present  woes  and  past, 
On  thy  sweet  brow  is  sorrow  ploughed  by  shame, 
And  annals  graved  in  characters  of  flame." 

In  these  lines  there  is  a  striking  image  of  the  true 
history  of  Italy.  Her  beauty  attracted  strangers,  and 
they  fought  for  her  possession.  It  was  not  merely  that 
she  had  to  struggle  against  those  invaders  who  sought 
to  despoil  her.  Alas !  she  was  forced  too  often,  in  her 
weakness,  to  look  as  a  mere  spectator  upon  the  wars 
between  the  rudest  barbarians  on  her  own  soil,  in  which 
her  only  interest  was  to  know  to  which  of  the  comba- 
tants she  would  fall  as  the  prize.  As  she  was  the  most 
tempting  of  all  the  provinces  of  the  Empire,  so  she  be- 
came the  earliest  prey  of  the  barbarians,  and  suffered 
perhaps  more  and  for  a  longer  period  than  any  other 
from  their  unchecked  domination.  During  a  period  of 
about  five  hundred  years,  beginning  A.D.  396,  the  Visi- 
goths, the  Burgundians,  the  Vandals,  the  Huns,  the 
Ostrogoths,  the  Franks,  the  Lombards,  the  Normans, 
and  the  Saracens  occupied  in  turn  large  portions  of 
her  territory,  and  ruled  the  remnant  of  the  popula- 
tion which  Roman  wars  and  Roman  maladministration 
had  left  in  Italy  by  the  same  brute  force  which  the 


310  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

forefathers  of  these  Italians  had  employed  towards  those 
tribes  on  the  frontiers  of  the  Empire,  whose  children  had 
now  come  to  avenge  their  old  wrongs. 

In  telling  this  sad  story  of  desolation  and  suffering 
it  is  hard  to  know  where,  within  the  limits  of  a  single 
chapter,  to  begin.  The  Lombard  invasion,  which  took 
place  about  the  close  of  the  sixth  century,  was  perhaps  the 
most  formidable  and  the  most  permanent  in  its  influence 
of  all  the  barbarian  inroads.  The  Lombard  domination 
lasted  in  Italy  for  more  than  two  hundred  years,  and 
under  it  was  established  there  that  feudal  system  which 
the  invaders  brought  from  Germany,  and  which  their 
Teutonic  fellow-countrymen  adopted  later  in  all  those 
portions  of  Europe  which  formed  the  Empire  of  Charle- 
magne. After  the  invasion,  and  during  the  occupa- 
tion by  the  Lombards,  Italy  was  divided  into  three 
distinct  portions,  each  governed  by  a  separate  power. 
The  Lombards  were  supreme  in  the  north  and  in  the 
country  west  of  the  Apennines,  holding,  besides,  the 
important  duchies  of  Spoleto  in  the  middle  and  Bene- 
ventum  in  the  south.  The  Roman  Empire,  or  rather 
that  shadow  of  its  great  name  which  was  to  be  found 
at  Constantinople,  ruled  the  country  on  the  shores  of  the 
Adriatic,  a  district  which  was  called,  in  official  language, 
the  Exarchate  of  Ravenna,  and  the  Popes  were  really 
the  controlling  power  in  the  Duchy  of  Rome,  although 
nominally  they  were  subject  to  the  Emperors  at  Con- 
stantinople. Besides  these,  there  was  a  number  of  mar- 
itime cities,  even  then  rising  into  importance  by  their 


THE  POPE  AND    THE  LOMBARDS.         311 

commerce,  such  as  Venice,  Gaeta,  Naples,  and  Amalfi, 
which,  being  out  of  the  reach  of  the  Lombards,  were 
practically  independent  and  self-governing. 

By  the  Lombards  Italy  was  regarded  for  a  long  time 
as  the  spoil  of  war  only.  By  the  conquest  two-thirds  of 
the  lands  of  the  population  had  been  transferred  to  the 
invaders,  and  the  other  third,  owing  to  cruel  and  bad 
government,  was  rendered  almost  unproductive.  The 
timid  representative  of  the  Emperor  at  Constantinople 
abandoned  all  attempt  to  succor  the  populations  which 
were  at  least  nominally  subject  to  his  master,  and  shut 
himself  up  in  Ravenna,  protected  from  attack  by  the 
morasses  which  surrounded  it.  The  only  living  and  real 
authority  recognized  by  any  was  the  moral  one, — that  of 
the  Church.  It  was  the  moral,  not  the  officially  recog- 
nized, authority  of  the  Church  which  could  say  to  a 
people  ground  down  by  the  exactions  of  both  Greeks 
and  Lombards,  "  Come  to  us  if  you  have  any  dispute 
the  decision  of  which  you  are  afraid  to  trust  to  the  bar- 
barians, and  we  will  try  and  settle  it  on  principles  of 
equity.  If  you  complain  that  you  cannot  trade  for  fear 
of  the  pillage  of  the  lords,  come  again  to  us,  and  here, 
even  in  the  sacred  precincts  of  the  convent,  you  shall 
buy  and  sell  freely  under  the  Church's  protection.  You 
complain  that  these  lords  pursue  you  often  with  mur- 
derous intent.  If  so,  come  to  us,  and  we  will  open  for 
your  refuge  the  churches,  and  there  you  shall  be  safe 
from  their  fury." 

We  soon  see  how  strong  this  power  of  the  Church 


312  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

became  in  these  troublous  times.  In  the  middle  of  the 
eighth  century,  the  Pope,  finding  his  position  an  embar- 
rassing, not  to  say  an  impossible,  one  between  a  Greek 
Emperor  who  threatened  to  destroy  all  the  images  used  in 
the  churches  in  Italy,  and  a  Lombard  king  who  threat- 
ened to  capture  Rome,  applied  first  to  Charles  Martel, 
and  afterwards  to  Pepin,  his  son,  Kings  of  the  Franks, 
for  succor.  The  result  was  such  as  I  have  described 
more  than  once  in  previous  chapters.  The  Lombards 
and  the  Greeks  were  defeated  by  the  Franks,  the  Ex- 
archate was  conferred  upon  the  Pope,  and  this  donation, 
and  not  that  of  Coustantine  (falsely  so  called),  was  the 
basis  of  the  temporal  power  of  the  Popes  as  recognized 
by  the  public  law  of  Europe.  The  work  of  the  Frank- 
ish  conquerors  was  completed  in  the  next  reign,  that  of 
Charlemagne,  who  extinguished  both  the  Greek  and  the 
Lombard  dominion  in  Italy,  and  became,  at  Christ- 
mas, 800,  by  his  alliance  with  the  Pope,  not  only  Em- 
peror of  the  world,  but  King  of  Italy  also.  From 
that  day  until  1870,  when  Victor  Emmanuel  was  pro- 
claimed, at  Rome,  King  of  Italy,  and  as  a  result  of  the 
work  done  on  that  Christmas  day,  Italy  was  ruled  by 
foreigners,  or  the  policy  of  her  different  princes  was 
dictated  by  foreign  influence.  Her  history,  as  I  have 
said  before,  is  the  history  of  a  never-ceasing,  and,  for 
many  centuries,  a  vain,  struggle  to  rid  herself  of  them. 
As  kings  of  Italy  the  successors  of  Charlemagne  were 
the  feudal  overlords  of  the  country ;  and  the  harshness 
of  their  rule  was  to  a  certain  extent  modified  by  their 


CASTLES  AND    CITY  WALLS  BUILT.       313 

alliance  with  the  Church,  while  as  Emperors  they  did 
not  hesitate  from  time  to  time  to  purify  the  Church  by 
preventing  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  from  being  desecrated 
by  unworthy  persons  who  sought  to  occupy  it.  The 
germs  of  the  feudal  system,  which  had  been  planted  in 
Italy  by  the  Lombards,  were  fully  developed  by  the 
Franks.  Vast  tracts  of  territory  were  granted  to  the 
principal  warriors  among  the  nobles,  who  had  an  abso- 
lute authority  over  the  inhabitants  of  the  lands  which 
•were  held  of  them. 

The  country,  and  especially  strong  military  positions 
throughout  it,  was  covered  with  castles,  and  they  be- 
came posts  of  defence  for  these  lords  against  their  neigh- 
bors. In  the  previous  invasions  of  the  barbarians  the 
walls  of  the  towns  had  been  levelled,  but  now  the  towns 
were  permitted  by  their  lords  to  rebuild  them,  because 
they  were  needed  for  their  defence  against  the  Nornaans, 
the  Avars,  and  the  Saracens,  who  from  time  to  time  for 
more  than  three  centuries  made  fierce  inroads  into  this 
unhappy  country.  This  rebuilding  of  the  walls  of  the 
towns  forms  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  country, 
for  it  enabled  the  cities  afterwards  to  combine  and  resist 
the  arbitrary  authority  not  only  of  the  neighboring  lords, 
but  also  of  their  German  masters.  The  successors  of 
Charlemagne,  of  all  the  three  dynasties,  always  insisted 
upon  their  feudal  suzerainty,  and,  what  was  of  more 
practical  importance,  upon  the  feudal  tribute  due  them 
as  kings  of  Italy.  During  eighty  years,  from  960  to 

1040,  the  German  kings  of  Italy  entered  that  country 

27 


314  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

twelve  times  at  the  head  of  large  armies.  They  encamped 
on  the  celebrated  plain  of  Roncaglia  near  Placentia,  and 
there  held  meetings  of  their  Italian  feudatories,  similar 
to  the  Champs  de  Mai  which  they  were  accustomed  to 
hold  in  Germany,  and  proclaimed  laws  for  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  country,  receiving  the  homage  of  their 
vassals,  and  collecting  the  tribute  payable  to  them  as  a 
feudal  due.  As  the  chief  object  of  the  Emperors  on  these 
expeditions  was  to  secure  the  money  payments  due  from 
their  vassals,  they  troubled  themselves  very  little,  if  these 
were  promptly  made,  with  any  claim  to  local  authority 
which  their  vassals,  nobles  or  cities,  might  set  up. 

In  the  long  absences  of  their  German  masters  the 
towns  in  Lombardy,  especially  Milan,  Pa  via,  Cremona, 
Brescia,  Padua,  and  Mantua,  had  established  in  each  a 
local  self-governing  body,  and  they  were  all,  at  least  in 
the  beginning,  bound  by  an  alliance  to  defend  the  privi- 
leges which  each  claimed  as  against  the  Emperor.  This 
Lombard  League,  as  it  was  called,  had  become  so  pow- 
erful that  it  defied  the  authority  of  the  Emperor,  Fred- 
erick Barbarossa,  even  when  its  two  principal  members, 
Milan  and  Pavia,  were  contending  for  the  leadership  of 
the  League.  Frederick,  for  the  sake  of  vindicating  his 
own  feudal  rights  as  well  as  those  of  the  great  vassals 
of  Lombardy  who  were  too  feeble  from  their  want  of 
organization  to  resist  the  demands  of  the  towns,  deter- 
mined to  destroy  this  Lombard  League.  Milan  suffered 
with  her  allies  from  his  fury  during  three  campaigns, 
and  at  last,  when  that  illustrious  city  was  taken  (1162); 


THE  LOMBARD  LEAGUE.  315 

not  only  its  walls  but  all  its  buildings  were,  by  order 
of  the  conqueror,  razed  to  the  ground.  But  the  heroic 
example  of  Milan  stimulated  the  resistance  of  the  other 
Lombard  cities,  and,  although  the  Emperor  strove  to 
overcome  it  for  many  years,  he  at  last  failed.  The 
decisive  battle  (which  in  its  results  is  one  of  the  most 
important  in  history)  was  that  of  Legnano  in  1176,  in 
which  the  Germans  and  their  Italian  allies  were  wholly 
defeated  by  the  army  of  the  Lombard  League,  and  this 
battle  was  followed  by  the  peace  of  Constance,  in  which 
the  Emperor  renounced  all  the  regal  authority  he  had 
claimed  within  the  cities,  acknowledging  their  right  to 
levy  armies,  and  to  build  fortifications,  and  to  administer 
the  law  as  they  saw  proper  within  their  own  jurisdiction. 
On  the  other  hand,  they  agreed  to  pay  him  two  thousand 
marks  in  silver  for  the  purchase  of  certain  of  his  feudal 
claims,  he  retaining  a  nominal  sovereignty  over  them. 
"  Thus  was  terminated,"  says  Sismondi,  "  the  first  and 
most  noble  struggle  ever  maintained  by  the  nations 
of  modern  Europe  against  despotism."  Their  position 
legally,  after  the  peace  of  Constance,  was  that  of  sub- 
jects  of  a  limited  instead  of  an  absolute  monarchy. 

Two  things  are  specially  to  be  noted  in  this  conflict: 
first,  that  the  Pope,  Alexander  III.,  against  whom  the 
Emperor  had  set  up  an  antipope,  sided  with  the  insur- 
gents. The  fortress  built  by  the  Lombard  League  as 
the  most  effectual  barrier  to  the  advance  of  Frederick  in 
Italy  was  that  of  Alexandria,  so  called  after  the  Pope, 
thus  honorably  identifying  the  papacy  with  this  first 


316  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

struggle  for  Italian  independence.  Then,  again,  during 
these  wars  the  party  names  of  Guelph  and  Ghibeline 
first  became  used  in  Italy,  although  originally  they  had 
nothing  Italian  about  them.  The  Guelphs  in  Germany 
were  originally  the  partisans  of  the  houses  of  Saxony 
and  Bavaria.  In  Italy  the  friends  of  the  Pope  and  of 
Italian  independence  assumed  that  name.  The  Ghibe- 
lines  in  Germany  were  the  friends  of  the  house  of  Swabia, 
or  Hohenstauffen,  to  which  the  Emperor  Frederick  be- 
longed, but  in  Italy  all  who  favored  Imperial  rights  and 
pretensions  in  that  country  were  called  Ghibelines. 

The  efforts  of  the  house  of  Hohenstauffen  to  main- 
tain its  authority  in  Italy  did  not  end,  unfortunately, 
at  the  peace  of  Constance.  At  the  death  of  Frederick 
Barbarossa,  his  grandson,  Frederick  II.,  inherited  from 
his  mother  Constance,  the  heiress  of  the  last  Norman 
king  of  Sicily,  all  the  possessions  of  that  house,  which 
included  not  only  the  island  of  Sicily,  but  that  portion 
of  Southern  Italy  known  in  modern  times  as  the  king- 
dom of  Naples.  On  his  father's  side  he  was  heir  of  the 
vast  domain  of  the  Hohenstauffens,  in  Germany,  and, 
besides,  he  was  elected  by  the  German  Diet  Emperor. 
No  Emperor  since  Charlemagne's  time  had  had  such 
vast  hereditary  possessions.  Being  thus  Emperor  and 
King  of  Naples  and  Sicily,  it  was  plain  that  the  tem- 
poral authority  of  the  Popes,  who  had  long  been  regarded 
as  the  liege  lords  of  the  Norman  kings  of  the  two  Sici- 
lies, would  become  endangered.  The  Pope,  it  seemed 
probable,  would  be  reduced  by  the  attitude  of  Frederick 


GUELPHS  AND   GHIBELINES.  317 

in  Italy  to  the  position  of  a  spiritual  ruler  only.  We 
may  easily  conceive  that  Innocent  III.,  who  was  on  the 
pontifical  throne  when  Frederick  of  Sicily  reached  man- 
hood, was  very  unwilling  that  the  vast  designs  which 
subsequent  events  prove  he  was  then  meditating  for  the 
advancement  of  the  papacy  should  fail  for  want  of  power 
in  the  head  of  the  Church.  It  must  be  remembered 
too  that  in  the  opinion  of  the  Italian  Guelphs  the  Pope 
was  as  naturally  and  properly  the  head  of  their  party 
as  he  was  the  head  of  the  Church.  It  was  this  senti- 
ment mainly,  I  think,  which  gave  rise  to  the  second 
attempt  of  the  Italians  to  drive  the  Germans  out  of 
their  country.  It  seems  an  echo  from  the  distant  past 
of  the  famous  war-cry  of  our  own  times, — "Italia  fard, 
da  se"  This  time  it  was  the  independence  of  the  Pope, 
not  as  the  spiritual  father,  but  as  an  Italian  prince, 
which  was  menaced,  and  it  was  maintained  by  the  towns, 
or  many  of  them,  as  previously  the  claim  had  been  the 
independence  of  these  towns  themselves,  which  was  sup- 
ported by  all  the  power  of  the  Pope. 

Frederick  II.  was  the  most  modern  of  mediaeval  sov- 
ereigns brought  into  collision  with  the  most  mediaeval 
of  all  Popes,  Innocent  III.  and  Gregory  IX.  While  he 
was  asserting  his  rights  in  Italy  against  the  claims  of  the 
Pope,  he  treated  him  as  the  head  of  a  Guelphic  league, 
the  object  of  which  was  to  increase  his  temporal  power  in 
Italy  at  the  expense  of  that  of  the  Emperor,  just  as  he 
would  have  treated  any  hostile  sovereign  in  arms  against 
him.  Frederick  II.  is,  next  to  Charlemagne,  the  most 

27* 


318  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

attractive  and  interesting  figure  among  all  the  Emperors. 
So  far  as  culture  was  concerned,  his  reign  opened  a  new 
era  in  Italy.  It  was  at  his  court  at  Palermo  that  the 
Italian  language  assumed  its  definitive  form.  Inspired 
doubtless  by  the  example  of  the  Saracens,  his  predeces- 
sors there,  he  founded  schools  and  universities ;  he  en- 
couraged men  distinguished  for  their  learning;  he  spoke 
with  facility  six  different  languages;  he  had  that  delicacy 
of  taste  characteristic  of  the  scholars  of  Southern  Eu- 
rope ;  he  was  fond  of  philosophical  studies,  which  prob- 
ably led  him  to  doubt  concerning  the  sacredness  of  the 
Church  and  the  sanctity  of  the  Popes  of  those  days. 
But  he  was  unable,  after  a  struggle  of  thirty  years,  to 
overcome  the  Popes,  supported  by  their  spiritual  power, 
and  aided  by  the  strength  of  the  Guelphic  cities  of 
Italy,  and  he  died  in  1250,  having  vainly  striven  to 
expiate  his  sins  against  the  Church  by  engaging  in  a 
Crusade.  He  left  the  cities  of  Italy  such  as  his  grand- 
father had  made  them  by  the  peace  of  Constance,  a 
multitude  of  petty  independent  republics,  each  with  the 
seed  of  dissolution  planted  within  it  by  the  rivalries  of 
the  factions  of  the  Guelphs  and  Ghibelines.  From  his 
death  German  Emperors  ceased  to  rule  in  Italy  as  the 
predecessors  of  Frederick  Barbarossa  had  done.  The 
posterity  of  Frederick  II.  met  with  the  most  determined 
hostility  on  the  part  of  the  Popes  in  their  hereditary 
dominion  of  the  two  Sicilies,  and  the  house  of  Hohen- 
stauffen,  ceasing  to  reign  either  in  Germany  or  in  Italyf 
became  shortly  afterwards  extinct. 


THE  CITY  REPUBLICS.  319 

Thus,  so  far  as  national  unity  was  concerned,  Italy 
was  in  a  more  hopeless  condition  after  the  last  heir  of 
the  house  of  Hohenstauffen  was  publicly  executed  at 
Naples  in  1268  than  she  had  been  since  the  fall  of  the 
Western  Empire  in  476.  The  power  within  her  limits 
which  was  not  wielded  by  the  Pope  as  the  head  of  the 
Guelphic  cities  and  as  administrator  of  the  kingdom 
of  the  two  Sicilies  was  held  either  by  a  vast  number 
of  towns,  each  forming  a  petty  sovereign  republic,  or 
by  nobles,  who  possessed  the  strongest  castles  and  the 
largest  estates  in  the  open  country. 

The  history  of  the  next  two  centuries  in  Italy  is 
the  history  of  the  downfall  of  these  petty  republics, 
and  their  transformation  into  hereditary  principalities 
which  became  vested  in  the  most  considerable  of  these 
families,  such  as  those  of  Visconti  and  Sforza  at  Milan, 
Malatesta  at  Rimini,  Gonzaga  at  Mantua,  Este  at  Fer- 
rara,  Medici  at  Florence,  Doria  at  Genoa,  La  Scala 
at  Verona,  etc.  There  are  said  to  have  been  nearly 
two  hundred  of  these  city  republics  in  Italy  at  the  close 
of  the  thirteenth  century.  Their  form  of  government, 
if  we  except  that  at  Venice,  was  substantially  the 
same.  They  were  governed  by  councils, — or  signoria, 
as  they  were  called  in  Florence, — composed  of  persons 
who  were  elected  in  these,  as  in  all  the  free  cities 
throughout  Europe,  by  the  burghers,  properly  so  called. 
Their  citizenship  was  an  hereditary  right,  derived  from 
those  by  whom  it  had  been  first  acquired.  In  many  of 
these  cities  the  ancient  nobility  found  a  place.  What 


320  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

genuine  oligarchies  these  cities  really  became  may  be 
judged  from  the  statement  that  in  Florence  and  in 
Venice  there  were  about  five  thousand  burghers  in  a 
population  of  one  hundred  thousand ;  and  this  was  about 
the  proportion  which  was  maintained  in  the  other  cities. 
The  mass  of  the  population,  therefore,  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  government  of  the  city  :  representation  in  our 
modern  sense  of  all  classes  being  unknown,  the  avowed 
object  was  to  establish  within  the  city  an  aristocracy  in 
its  primitive  sense, — the  government  of  the  best. 

Among  these  various  city  republics,  large  and  small, 
scattered  over  Italy,  there  was,  moreover,  no  confedera- 
tion, although  leagues  for  making  war  against  a  common 
enemy  were  not  unusual.  The  master-feeling  in  all  of 
them  was  pride  in  their  own  independence  and  jealousy  of 
their  neighbors.  There  was  a  perpetual  desire  of  usurp- 
ing the  rights  of  these  neighbors,  and  of  extending  their 
power  over  those  cities  which  were  weaker  than  them- 
selves. These  cities  became  the  hotbeds  of  the  political 
intrigues  and  ambition  of  certain  families  among  the 
burghers  who  aspired  to  control  their  policy.  There  was 
perpetual  tumult  and  fighting  between  rival  factions. 
No  injustice  or  cruelty  or  crime  was  regarded  as  for- 
bidden, if  by  committing  such  acts  the  objects  of  the 
crafty  politician  might  be  gained.  Wholesale  confis- 
cations, and  the  exile  of  all  the  principal  members  of 
the  unsuccessful  party,  were  measures  commonly  resorted 
to.  The  history  of  all  the  so-called  republic  cities  of 
Italy,  from  that  of  Florence  down  through  that  of 


MATERIAL  PROSPERITY  UNDER    THEM.    321 

Pisa,  Genoa,  and  Milan,  to  the  smallest  of  them,  is  a 
history  of  the  selfish  struggles  of  the  leaders  in  each  to 
gain  the  supremacy.  If  we  looked  only  upon  this  side 
of  the  history  of  these  republics,  we  should  be  inclined 
to  think  that  they  were  cursed  with  the  worst  govern- 
ment known  to  civilized  man,  far  worse  than  even  the 
arbitrary  despotism  of  feudalism,  because  in  Italy  the 
tyrants  of  the  cities  and  their  policy  were  constantly 
changing.  And  yet  we  are  obliged  to  say  that  this  very 
period  was  the  era  of  unsurpassed  prosperity  in  these 
towns,  notwithstanding  the  disorder  caused  by  the  con- 
stant strife  of  factions  within  them. 

At  no  period  was  party  spirit  more  violent  than 
during  the  thirteenth  century;  yet  at  that  very  time 
the  prosperity  not  only  of  the  towns  themselves,  but 
of  the  districts  outside  of  them  but  under  their  govern- 
ment, is  said  to  have  been  prodigious  and  in  striking 
contrast  with  the  condition  of  the  rest  of  Europe,  where 
nothing  but  poverty  and  barbarism  was  to  be  found. 
To  this  period  belongs  the  great  work  of  irrigating  the 
plains  of  Lorabardy  by  canals,  undertaken  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  city  of  Milan ;  and  this,  with  certain  im- 
provements introduced  about  the  same  time  in  Tuscany, 
marks  the  first  traces  of  scientific  agriculture,  except  the 
works  of  the  Saracens  in  the  south  of  Spain,  to  be 
found  in  Europe.  This,  too,  was  the  era  of  the  con- 
struction of  the  great  architectural  works  in  the  towns, 
which  even  now  excite  wonder  and  admiration.  Not 
only  the  great  palaces  and  churches  by  which  Florence 


322  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

is  distinguished  were  then  built,  but  town-halls,  bridges, 
aqueducts,  and  other  works  of  public  utility  there  and 
elsewhere  throughout  Italy.  The  nobles  and  wealthy 
burghers  lived  in  houses  conspicuous  for  their  beauty, 
elegance,  and  comfort,  while  the  kings  of  the  North 
still  dwelt  in  rude  castles,  where  everything  was  sacri- 
ficed to  making  them  places  of  defence.  The  inhab- 
itant of  Paris  wandered  helplessly  about  his  town 
through  narrow  passages  filled  with  mud  and  filth  long 
after  the  citizen  of  Florence  was  provided  with  broad 
aud  well-paved  streets.  The  fine  arts  and  literature 
were  not  neglected,  although  the  period  of  the  later 
Renaissance  was  yet  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  dis- 
tant. The  celebrated  bronze  gates  of  the  Baptistery  at 
Florence  were  cast  at  a  time  when  the  government  of 
that  city  was  fiercely  disputed  by  rival  factions;  and  in 
the  same  era  Cimabue  and  Giotto  revived  the  art  of 
painting,  and  Dante  wrote  La  Divina  Commedia. 

The  vast  wealth  of  which  such  a  civilization  was  the 
outgrowth  was  due  partly  to  habits  of  industry,  which 
met  with  a  rich  reward,  and  partly  to  the  vast  and  prof- 
itable commerce  which  was  carried  on  by  the  maritime 
republics,  Venice,  Genoa,  Pisa,  and  Florence,  with  the 
East.  These  towns  became  the  entrepots  of  the  movable 
wealth  of  Europe.  To  them  came  all  the  merchants 
of  the  North  and  West,  who  supplied  the  wants  of  the 
people  of  those  regions  in  all  that  ministered  to  a  taste 
for  luxury  and  refinement.  The  Genoans  and  Pisans 
established  trading-posts  at  numerous  places  on  the  Black 


MUNICIPAL  PRIDE.  323 

Sea ;  and  the  most  important  islands  in  the  Archipelago 
belonged  to  the  Venetians.  Small  as  these  republics 
were,  their  wealth  and  commerce  gave  them  the  position 
of  most  important  ruling  powers  in  Europe  during  the 
Middle  Age.  With  our  modern  notions  that  prosperity  is 
inseparably  connected  with  an  honest,  ust,  and  firm  rule, 
we  find  it  difficult  to  explain  this  strange  spectacle  which 
the  history  of  the  Italian  city  republics  presents  of  bad 
government  united  with  apparent  prosperity.  We  must 
remember,  however,  that  there  was  one  sentiment  com- 
mon to  all  the  rival  factions  within  them,  and  that  was 
an  intense  pride  in  the  greatness  and  supremacy  of  their 
own  particular  town,  and  an  earnest  determination  to 
maintain  it.  The  large  spirit  of  national  patriotism  was 
hardly  felt  in  Italy  during  the  Middle  Age,  as  it  had 
not  been  even  among  the  most  enlightened  nations  of 
antiquity.  Its  place  was  supplied  by  an  intense  mu- 
nicipal feeling,  the  product  of  a  narrow  local  sentiment 
which  the  natural  and  political  divisions  of  the  country 
often  stimulated  to  a  degree  fatal  to  good  government, 
to  peace,  and  even  to  honor.  They  used  to  say  at  Ven- 
ice, Venetians  first,  Christians  afterwards,  and  then, 
last  of  all,  Italians;  and  such  was  substantially  the 
feeling  at  Milan,  Genoa,  Pisa,  and  Florence.  While 
every  ambitious  man  within  them  strove  to  raise  him- 
self to  power,  all  struggled  to  maintain  the  supremacy 
of  their  town  without  its  walls,  and  to  promote  the 
glory  of  its  civilization  within  them.  No  civilization 
in  modern  times  has  anything  like  the  brilliancy  of  that 


324  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

of  these  Italian  towns  during  at  least  two  centuries, 
but  we  may  say  now,  with  confidence,  that  because  it 
had  no  root  in  the  eternal  truths  of  right  and  justice, 
it  withered  away. 

These  republics  all,  with  the  exception  of  Venice, 
perished  and  became  principalities,  the  heritage  of  one 
of  the  great  families  dwelling  within  them  and  who  had 
been  intrusted  with  their  defence,  from  two  causes :  first, 
the  necessity  of  confiding  to  professional  military  leaders 
and  to  mercenary  soldiers  the  force  which  was  intended 
for  the  protection  of  the  town  against  rival  factions  within 
it,  and  for  making  expeditions  against  its  neighbors; 
and,  secondly,  the  absolute  control  which  the  force  so 
constituted  soon  exercised  over  the  city.  Of  course,  with 
such  an  army  there  was  but  one  step  from  being  its 
leader  to  becoming  the  ruler  of  the  State. 

Whatever  the  Italian  republics  had  gained  during 
their  era  of  prosperity,  it  is  clear  that  they  had  not 
learned  how  to  resist  successfully  their  own  domestic 
tyrants.  These  tyrants,  as  they  are  called  in  the  Greek 
sense  that  they  gained  power  by  illegal  means,  were  so 
numerous  that  with  reference  to  the  methods  which  they 
took  to  raise  themselves  to  power  on  the  ruins  of  these 
republics  they  have  been  classified  into  six  varieties. 
But  they  were  all  alike  usurpers  and  betrayers  of  the 
trust  confided  to  them.  They  were  usually  foreign 
knights,  and  the  title  given  to  them  was  that  of  Podestct,. 
These  men  so  called  to  this  office,  whether  they  were 
great  feudal  lords  or  vicars  of  the  Empire,  or  captains 


MODERN  ITALIAN  NOBILITY.  325 

of  the  people  so  called,  or  leaders  of  the  condottieri,  or 
nephews  of  Popes,  or  merely  eminent  burghers  like  the 
Medici,  all  abused  the  unlimited  powers  intrusted  to 
them,  and  sought  to  establish  family  dynasties  on  the 
ruins  of  these  republics. 

Such  is  the  origin  of  all  the  great  noble  families  of 
modern  Italy.  Their  policy  for  more  than  two  centuries 
was  not  unlike  that  of  the  republics  they  destroyed, — 
viz.,  to  add  to  their  own  possessions  at  the  expense  of 
their  weaker  neighbors.  But,  the  republics  once  gone, 
civic  pride  and  civic  prosperity  went  with  them,  and  his- 
tory does  not  present  an  example  in  Europe  of  the  rapid 
degeneracy  of  a  people  as  striking  as  that  presented  by 
Italy  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  under  the 
government  of  the  family  dynasties  founded  by  these 
tyrants.  The  first  care  of  each  usurper  was  to  disarm 
the  citizens,  who,  long  accustomed  to  the  pursuits  of 
trade,  were  in  truth  not  usually  inclined  to  serious  re- 
sistance, and  to  supply  their  places  with  a  force  of  heavy 
cavalry,  chiefly  composed  of  Germans,  who  it  was  sup- 
posed, being  ignorant  of  the  language  of  the  towns  in 
which  they  were  stationed,  besides  being  mere  profes- 
sional soldiers,  would  be  faithful  to  their  chiefs.  But 
these  rude  warriors  soon  found  out  that  it  would  be 
easier  for  them  to  plunder  for  themselves  than  to  divide 
the  spoil  with  a  master.  They  formed  themselves  into 
companies  under  the  command  of  condottieri,  or  hired 
captains,  and  offered  their  services  to  those  who  would 

pay  the  highest  price  for  them,  with  perfect  indifference 

28 


326  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

as  to  the  party  or  the  cause  for  which  they  were  fight- 
ing. Thus,  in  1343,  a  roving  troop  of  these  adventu- 
rers, calling  themselves  "  The  Great  Company,"  under 
the  command  of  a  German,  Count  Werner,  was  organ- 
ized in  Lombardy,  with  the  following  significant  motto 
graven  on  their  corselets :  "  Enemy  of  God,  of  Pity,  and 
of  Mercy."  These  banditti,  instead  of  being  extirpated 
by  those  whom  they  threatened  to  plunder,  became  the 
most  useful  auxiliaries  employed  by  the  allied  princes  of 
Lombardy  against  the  Visconti  of  Milan.  Their  trade 
proved  so  profitable  that  companies  of  condottieri  made 
up  exclusively  of  Italians  were  afterwards  formed,  thus 
making  their  own  countrymen  their  prey.  For  more 
than  twenty  years  all  the  wars  in  Italy  were  carried  on 
by  these  robbers,  who  divided  themselves  into  distinct 
bands  with  the  purpose  of  giving  employment  in  the 
various  quarrels  which  arose  among  the  different  princes 
to  all  members  of  the  profession.  To  this  practice  of 
enlisting  mercenary  troops,  which  was  continued  on  a 
large  scale  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  the  great 
Machiavelli  attributes  the  conquest  of  Italy  by  foreigners 
during  the  sixteenth  century.  A  native  military  force 
and  organization  based  on  the  national  principles  which 
gave  strength  to  the  invading  armies  was  until  recent 
times  unknown  in  Italy. 

As  the  time  approached  when  the  control  of  that 
country  was  to  be  fought  for  by  the  great  powers, — 
France,  Germany,  and  Spain, — the  Italian  princes  were 
becoming  gradually  weaker,  owing  to  their  expending 


THE  WEAL  ITALIAN  PRINCE.  327 

their  force  in  constant  quarrels  among  themselves. 
Many  of  them  were  men  of  distinguished  character 
and  ability,  who,  had  they  pursued  any  other  course 
than  that  of  maintaining  themselves  and  their  families 
in  power  by  destroying  the  life  of  their  own  country, 
would  have  left  a  great  name  in  history. 

The  ideal  Italian  prince,  the  legitimate  successor  of  the 
condottieri,  seems  such  a  monster,  as  he  is  portrayed  in 
the  pages  of  Machiavelli,  that  his  book  II  Principe  was 
long  looked  upon  as  a  romance,  and  the  typical  prince  he 
describes  as  an  impossible  being.  Further  and  modern 
researches  have  shown,  however,  that  his  pictures  were 
genuine  portraits  of  men  he  had  known  and  served. 
It  is  true  that  the  particular  model  who  sat  for  the 
portrait  of  the  Italian  prince  was  Csesar  Borgia,  a 
man  steeped  in  every  vice  which  can  deform  or  corrupt 
the  human  heart.  History,  unfortunately,  teaches  us  the 
sad  truth  that  a  man  may  have  been  as  depraved  as 
Machiavelli  has  described  Borgia  and  yet  have  been  an 
accomplished  Italian  prince  in  the  fifteenth  century. 
He  needed,  for  instance,  no  principle  of  morality,  al- 
though he  must  be  religious,  with  the  understanding  that 
religion  then  meant  mere  conformity  to  the  order  of  the 
Church,  and  that  it  was  entirely  divorced  from  the  re- 
straint of  morality.  A  country,  large  or  small,  in  the 
possession  of  a  prince,  was  merely  so  much  capital  in  his 
hands,  and  his  business  was  with  that  capital  to  make  the 
most  out  of  it  he  could  for  his  own  personal  advantage. 
Machiavelli's  views  as  to  the  best  method  of  subjugating 


328  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

free  cities — the  practical  business  question  of  his  day — 
seem  only  a  faithful  reproduction  of  the  course  pursued 
by  these  tyrants  in  the  destruction  of  the  Italian  re- 
publics. He  sums  up  his  views  of  government  with 
this  wise  apothegm,  the  fruit  of  his  long  and  bitter 
experience :  It  is  safer  for  a  ruler  to  be  feared  than  to 
be  loved.  "  Put  no  faith  in  the  pretended  love  of  men," 
he  says.  "When  it  is  their  interest  they  will  serve  you, 
and  when  you  count  on  their  gratitude  they  will  desert 
you.  If  you  wish  to  succeed,  keep  no  faith  when  it 
is  harmful  to  do  so :  it  is  not  necessary  that  a  prince 
should  be  merciful,  loyal,  humane,  religious,  just;  on  the 
contrary,  an  exhibition  of  these  qualities  will  usually  be 
harmful,  but"  (and  here  is  that  homage  which,  happily, 
by  the  very  constitution  of  the  human  heart,  Virtue 
always  forces  Vice  to  pay  her)  "  the  prince  must  always 
seem  to  have  them." 

The  value  of  these  opinions  of  Machiavelli  for  us 
consists  in  this,  that  they  give  us  the  true  explanation 
of  the  motives  which  produced  those  acts  of  cruelty, 
tyranny,  and  force,  and  that  life  of  utter  self-indulgence, 
depravity,  and  corruption,  which  characterize  the  era  of 
the  rule  of  the  Italian  princes  in  the  fourteenth  and  fif- 
teenth centuries.  We  must  keep  our  eyes  steadily  fixed 
on  this  condition  as  the  source  of  all  the  evils  that  over- 
whelmed the  Italian  people  during  this  epoch.  We 
are  sometimes,  I  think,  in  danger  of  misconceiving  the 
true  character  of  this  time.  Italy,  in  the  age  of  these 
tyrants,  was  a  country  of  strange  contrasts.  With  all  the 


TYRANNY  AND    CULTURE   COMBINED.    329 

frightful  horrors  of  a  despotism  carried  out  on  the  prin- 
ciples which  I  have  just  described  are  found  in  close 
juxtaposition  so  many  traces  of  a  brilliant  culture,  and 
one  so  much  in  advance  of  any  other  in  Europe  at  that 
time,  that  we  naturally  incline  to  dwell  rather  on  the 
bright  than  on  the  dark  side  of  the  picture.  These 
tyrants  were  nearly  all  munificent  patrons  of  learning 
and  of  the  fine  arts ;  and  it  is  this,  I  doubt  not,  which 
has  saved  them  from  being  ranked  in  history  with  such 
monsters  as  Tiberius  and  Nero  and  Caligula.  When 
we  think  of  the  Visconti  of  Milan,  the  building  of  the 
famous  cathedral  in  that  city,  of  the  Certosa  at  Pavia, 
and  the  restoration  of  the  university,  works  which  were 
all  due  to  that  family,  make  us  forget  for  the  moment 
that  its  members  wrere  a  brood  of  ferocious  tyrants, 
who,  not  content  with  usurping  the  government  of  the 
free  towns  of  Lombardy,  aspired  to  bring  all  Italy  under 
their  cruel  sway.  When  we  speak  of  another  of  these 
tyrants,  Malatesta  of  Rimini,  we  remember  rather  that 
he  encouraged  literature  and  delighted  in  the  society  of 
artists ;  that  he  was  an  amiable  enthusiast  as  a  student 
of  Greek  literature,  going  so  far  as  to  dig  up  the  body 
of  a  celebrated  scholar  from  his  native  Greek  soil  and 
causing  it  to  be  transported  to  Rimini,  where  it  was 
preserved  in  the  cathedral  as  a  relic.  We  remember  these 
things,  I  say ;  but,  strange  to  say,  we  forget  that  this  was 
the  same  man  who  was  impeached  at  Rome  for  heresy, 
parricide,  incest,  adultery,  rape,  and  sacrilege.  So  in 

regard  to  the  Medici.     We  love  to  think  of  them  as  the 

28* 


330  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

true  fathers  of  the  Renaissance  in  Italy.  We  recall  with 
a  glow  of  pleasure  that  famous  description  of  Lorenzo 
the  Magnificent  at  his  villa  near  Fiesole.  "In  that 
villa,"  says  Hallam,  "overhanging  the  towers  of  Flor- 
ence, in  gardens  which  Tully  might  have  envied,  with 
Ficino,  Landino,  and  Politian  at  his  side,  he  delighted 
his  hours  of  leisure  with  the  beautiful  visions  of  the 
Platonic  philosophy  for  which  the  summer  stillness  of 
an  Italian  sky  appears  the  most  congenial  accompani- 
ment." While  we  do  this,  we  forget  the  stern  but 
unheeded  voice  of  Savonarola,  as  he  whispered  in  the 
dying  tyrant's  ear,  "  Restore  liberty  to  Florence."  And 
so  with  the  Popes  of  the  fifteenth  century ;  we  are  blinded 
by  the  brilliancy  of  the  scholarship  and  the  love  of  pro- 
fane learning  exhibited  by  such  men  as  Nicholas  V.,  the 
founder  in  modern  times  of  public  libraries,  or  Pius  II., 
who,  as  JEneas  Sylvius,  was  the  most  distinguished 
Greek  scholar  of  his  day,  and  we  do  not  think  of  their 
nepotism,  or  of  the  efforts  which  they  and  their  imme- 
diate successors  made  to  establish,  like  the  princes  around 
them,  ruling  dynasties  in  their  own  families.  Nothing 
is  clearer,  unfortunately,  in  history  than  that  the  encour- 
agement of  the  arts  and  of  learning  may  coexist  with 
the  most  thorough  despotism  in  a  government  and  with 
flagrant  corruption  in  morals.  The  age  of  Augustus  in 
the  ancient  world,  and  that  of  Louis  XIV.  in  the  modern, 
teach  us  the  same  truth  on  this  subject  as  the  history  of 
Italy  under  its  princes  and  Popes  of  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries. 


MEDIAEVAL  ITALIAN  DYNASTIES.          331 

But  the  day  of  vengeance  was  fast  approaching,  and 
the  Italian  governments,  such  as  I  have  described  them, 
were  soon  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  the  power  of  the  North- 
ern nations. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century  the  prin- 
cipal powers  of  Italy  were  those  of  the  Sforza,  ruling 
over  Lombardy  and  Genoa;  the  republic  of  Venice; 
Florence,  under  the  house  of  the  Medici;  the  Ro- 
magna,  under  the  Orsini  and  Colonna  and  John  Borgia  ; 
the  Pope;  and  the  kingdom  of  the  two  Sicilies,  under 
the  house  of  Aragon.  Each  was  striving  for  the  mas- 
tery, and,  as  if  to  illustrate  the  truth  of  the  proverb, 
Quern  Deus  vult  perdere  prius  elemental,  Charles  VIII., 
King  of  France,  was  called  in  not  only  by  the  Sforza  at 
Milan  alone,  but  by  Savonarola  himself  at  Florence,  to 
restore  order.  His  own  pretext  was  a  claim  to  the  throne 
of  Naples  as  the  heir  of  the  house  of  Anjou ;  and  such 
was  the  weakness  of  the  various  governments  that  he 
marched  from  one  end  of  Italy  to  the  other  without 
meeting  any  serious  opposition,  and  took  possession  of 
the  Neapolitan  kingdom.  Wars  then  began,  not  between 
him  and  the  Italian  princes,  but  between  France  and 
the  rival  kings  of  Spain  and  Germany.  This  struggle 
continued  until  Italy  became,  in  the  language  of  di- 
plomacy, "a  mere  geographical  expression,"  a  field  for 
the  exercise  of  the  power  of  nations  all  of  whom  were 
equally  strangers  to  her  soil  and  hostile  to  the  develop- 
ment of  her  national  life. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

MONASTICISM,   CHIVALRY,   AND  THE  CRUSADES. 

IF  we  seek  to  understand  fully  the  characteristics  of 
any  historical  epoch,  we  must  not  confine  ourselves  to 
a  study  merely  of  the  outward  form  of  the  organization 
of  its  government  and  institutions.  Two  very  impor- 
tant things  at  least  in  the  history  of  an  age  we  shall 
be  unable  to  discover  in  this  way, — one  its  stream  of 
tendency,  and  the  other  its  capacity  for  growth.  Very 
often  in  history  we  find  that  the  spirit  and  the  true  life 
long  remain,  while  the  outward  form  by  which  that  life 
was  manifested  at  a  particular  epoch  has  become  wholly 
decayed.  What,  of  course,  \ve  seek  to  learn  in  history 
is  the  substance,  and  not  the  form,  of  a  particular  de- 
velopment ;  what  survives  and  expands,  and  not  what 
perishes  in  the  using.  With  this  object  in  view,  we  must 
extend  somewhat  the  survey  we  have  been  taking  of  the 
Middle  Age.  A  simple  account  of  that  formal  organi- 
zation of  the  Church  and  the  State  which  grew  up  in 
Europe  from  the  mingling  of  the  Roman  and  Christian 
society  with  the  barbarian  element  does  not  suffice  to 
explain  fully  the  nature  of  that  peculiar  form  of  social 
life  which  was  adopted  by  the  whole  of  Western  Europe 
from  the  fall  of  the  Empire  to  the  close  of  the  Crusades. 

There  was  an  inner  life,  not  always  manifested  in  the 
332 


THREE  INDIRECT  INFLUENCES.          333 

external  forms,  a  life  resting  on  definite  principles,  on 
certain  dogmas,  and  on  common  habits,  the  whole  form- 
ing a  perfectly  homogeneous  and  unique  type,  controlled 
by  a  sentiment  resembling  what  is  now  called  public 
opinion  as  distinct  from  formal  law. 

There  are  three  peculiarities  of  that  life,  or  rather 
three  influences  acting  on  and  moulding  it  in  its  various 
phases,  of  which  I  propose  to  speak  in  this  chapter. 
These  three  influences  are  Monasticism,  Chivalry,  and 
the  Crusades.  Without  the  constant  presence  and  power 
of  these  indirect  forces  I  do  not  see  how  the  feudal 
system,  as  I  have  described  its  relations  to  Church  and 
State,  could  have  so  long  continued  as  a  form  of  govern- 
ment. These  institutions,  it  seems  to  me,  had  much  to 
do  with  what  was  fundamental  and  real  in  the  life 
of  the  Middle  Age.  Their  special  and  controlling  in- 
fluence is  manifest  in  every  part  of  its  history.  A  por- 
tion of  it  at  least  has  survived,  and  has  come  down  to 
us  as  a  legacy ;  and  perhaps  when  we  speak  with  con- 
tempt of  the  outward  features  of  the  feudal  system  we 
sometimes  forget  how  much  we  are  controlled  by  the 
spirit  which  gave  that  system  life. 

Monasticism  then,  in  the  Middle  Age,  may  be  consid- 
ered in  one  sense  as  the  strong  and  earnest  expression  of 
the  feeling  of  the  time  concerning  the  best  method  by 
which  the  clergy  could  perform  their  duties  to  their 
fellow-men ;  chivalry,  as  embodying  the  Middle- Age 
conception  of  the  ideal  life  of  the  only  class  outside  the 
clergy  who  had  any  real  power,  the  knights ;  while  the 


334  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

Crusades  were  the  outcome  of  a  combination  between  mo- 
nasticism  and  knighthood, — the  object  proposed  by  this 
combination,  the  glory  and  supremacy  of  the  Church, 
being,  in  the  opinion  of  the  times,  the  grandest  and 
worthiest  to  which  either  priest  or  layman  could  aspire. 
These  three  streams  of  influence  are  not  only  those 
which  gave  its  true  and  best  life  to  the  feudal  system 
and  to  the  Middle  Age  while  it  lasted,  but  the  spirit 
which  informed  that  life  characterizes  whatever  remains 
to  us  of  that  system  which  has  been  incorporated  in  our 
modern  society. 

The  practice  of  monasticism  arose  in  the  first  instance 
from  an  earnest  desire  of  devotees  to  lead  a  religious  life 
of  ideal  purity  and  excellence.  This  practice  has  not 
been  confined  to  those  who  held  the  Christian  faith.  In 
all  ages  of  the  world,  in  all  countries,  and  in  nearly  all 
religions,  there  has  been  one  form  of  the  religious  life  for 
the  few,  and  another  for  the  many,  although  the  same 
religious  creed  or  belief  was  common  to  both  classes. 
In  most  of  the  religions  of  the  world  the  line  which 
separated  these  two  classes  was  that  upon  one  side  of 
which  was  found  asceticism  in  its  highest  sense  as  the 
rule  and  practice  of  religious  life,  and  on  the  other  side 
a  thoroughly  orthodox  belief  combined  with  a  practice 
by  which  the  ordinary  duties  of  life  could  be  performed 
and  its  pleasures  enjoyed  without  a  consciousness  of  vio- 
lating the  obligations  of  duty.  There  seems  to  be  a 
universal  natural  instinct  which  has  led  men  to  believe, 
at  all  times,  that  in  the  loftiest  conception  of  the  religious 


GROWTH  OF  MONASTICISM.  335 

life  there  was  an  irreconcilable  hostility  between  the 
flesh  and  the  spirit, — a  form  of  Manicheism  which  we 
meet  all  through  history,  and  which  indeed  formed  the 
basis  of  most  of  the  heresies  of  the  Middle  Age.  The 
sacred  books  of  Brahma  and  of  Boudha  recognize  this 
distinction  as  fundamental,  and  they  enjoin  seclusion 
from  the  world  and  a  great  variety  of  acts  of  penance 
and  self-mortification  as  highly  meritorious,  prescribing 
their  observance  as  the  sure  method  by  which  the  devotee 
shall  be  absorbed  at  last  into  the  Divine  fountain  of  all 
being.  So  among  the  Jews,  as  is  well  known,  there  were 
ascetic  sects,  the  Essenes  and  the  TherapeutaB,  who 
sought  by  seclusion  from  the  world  and  by  keeping 
under  the  fleshly  appetites  to  secure  the  Divine  favor. 
The  same  principle,  the  aim  of  which  was  Divine  per- 
fection, is  found  in  many  Oriental  religions,  and  even 
among  the  warlike  Saracens,  who  had  their  cloistered 
monks  and  their  dervishes. 

Christian  monasticism  had  its  rise  in  Egypt,  a  land, 
above  all  others,  where,  from  the  days  of  the  Ptolemies, 
religious  sects  and  opinions  have  met  in  perpetual  con- 
flict. The  first  Christian  monks  (who  were  laymen) 
adopted  the  solitary  life  of  hermits  about  the  beginning 
of  the  fourth  century.  Their  earnest  and  well-meant  but 
mistaken  effort  was  to  preserve  the  original  purity  of  the 
Christian  Church  by  transplanting  it  into  the  wilderness. 
The  moral  corruption  of  the  Roman  Empire,  which  was 
nominally  Christian  but  was  essentially  heathen  in  the 
whole  framework  of  its  society,  the  oppressiveness  of 


336  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  Imperial  taxes,  the  extremes  of  despotism  and 
slavery,  of  extravagant  luxury  and  hopeless  poverty, 
the  decay  of  all  productive  energy  in  science  and  the 
arts,  the  threatening  incursions  of  the  barbarians  on 
the  frontiers,  and,  above  all,  the  profound  belief  that 
the  end  of  the  world  and  the  judgment-day  were  at 
hand,  combined  to  produce  in  the  most  earnest  minds  a 
desire  to  seek  relief  in  seclusion  from  the  world. 

The  second  stage  of  monasticism  was  cenobitic  or 
cloister  life,  a  substitution  of  the  social  for  the  solitary 
form  of  devotion.  Under  this  form  many  monasteries, 
both  for  men  and  for  women,  grew  up  in  Egypt,  each 
with  a  complete  organization  and  each  governed  by  the 
strictest  discipline,  the  time  of  the  inmates  being  divided 
between  acts  of  devotion  and  such  labor  as  would  sup- 
port the  members  of  the  community.  The  Eastern  mon- 
asteries, however,  never  became  great  working  establish- 
ments, such  as  we  find  later  in  the  West.  Like  all 
Oriental  people,  those  who  fled  to  the  desert  to  worship 
led  a  solitary  life  by  preference,  exclusively  absorbed  in 
the  contemplation  of  the  Divine  life,  hoping  thereby, 
and  by  constant  self-denial  and  the  mortification  of  the 
flesh,  to  reach  the  ideal  condition  of  Christian  per- 
fection. 

When,  however,  the  zeal  for  the  monastic  life  ex- 
tended to  Western  Europe,  its  organization  and  methods 
were  much  modified  by  the  practical  minds  of  men  like 
St.  Jerome  and  St.  Augustine,  trained  by  Koman  law  and 
in  Roman  traditions.  There  were  many  monasteries  in 


ST.  BENEDICT  OF  NURSIA.  337 

the  West  before  the  time  of  St.  Benedict  of  Nursia  (A.D. 
480) ;  but  he  has  been  rightly  considered  the  father  of 
Western  rnonasticism,  for  he  not  only  founded  an  order 
to  which  many  religious  houses  became  attached,  but  he 
established  a  rule  for  their  government  which,  in  its 
main  features,  was  adopted  as  the  rule  of  monastic  life 
by  all  the  orders  for  more  than  five  centuries,  or  until 
the  time  of  St.  Dominic  and  St.  Francis  of  Assisi. 

Benedict  was  first  a  hermit,  living  in  the  mountains 
of  Southern  Italy,  and  in  that  region  he  afterwards 
established  in  succession  twelve  monasteries,  each  with 
twelve  monks  and  a  superior.  In  the  year  520  he 
founded  the  great  monastery  of  Monte  Casino  as  the 
mother-house  of  his  order,  a  house  which  became  the 
most  celebrated  and  powerful  monastery,  according  to 
Montalembert,  in  the  Catholic  universe,  celebrated  es- 
pecially because  there  Benedict  prepared  his  rule  and 
formed  the  type  which  was  to  serve  as  a  model  to  the 
innumerable  communities  submitting  to  it  as  a  sovereign 
code.  By  that  rule  each  monastery  was  to  be  governed 
absolutely,  or  at  least  in  the  sense  in  which  a  bishop 
governs  his  clergy,  by  an  abbot  elected  by  the  monks, 
who  were  to  be  admitted  as  such  only  after  a  long  no- 
vitiate and  upon  pronouncing  a  solemn  vow.  By  this 
vow  the  candidate  promised,  among  other  things,  to 
maintain  poverty,  chastity,  and  obedience  to  the  abbot. 
These  were  always  the  conditions  of  monastic  life;  their 
observance,  and  the  obligation  of  the  monks  to  lead  a 
life  of  self-denial  and  labor  both  of  body  and  mind, 

29 


338  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

were  enforced  by  very  strict  discipline  under  the  Bene- 
dictine rule.  Neither  in  the  East  nor  in  the  West  were 
the  monks  originally  ecclesiastics;  and  it  was  not  until 
the  eighth  century  that  they  became  priests,  called  regu- 
lars, in  contrast  with  the  ordinary  parisli  clergy,  who 
were  called  seculars.  As  missionaries,  they  proved  the 
most  powerful  instruments  in  extending  the  authority 
and  the  boundaries  of  the  Church.  The  monk  had  no 
individual  property :  even  his  dress  belonged  to  the 
monastery.  He  was  required  to  work,  on  the  principle 
that  an  idle  monk  has  ten  devils  to  contend  with,  while  a 
hard-working  one  has  but  a  single  one.  To  enable  him 
to  work  efficiently,  it  was  necessary  to  feed  him  well ; 
and  such  was  the  injunction  of  Benedict,  as  opposed  to 
the  former  practice  of  strict  asceticism. 

In  less  than  a  century  after  the  death  of  Benedict  the 
conquests  of  the  barbarians  in  Italy,  Gaul,  and  Spain 
were  reconquered  for  civilization,  and  the  vast  territories 
of  England,  Germany,  and  Scandinavia  were  incorpo- 
rated into  Christendom  or  opened  as  fields  for  mission- 
ary labor.  In  this  bright  chapter  of  the  history  of  the 
Dark  Ages  the  monks  of  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict  were 
the  most  conspicuous  actors,  and  to  them  is  due  much 
of  the  progress  which  was  made.  The  most  illustrious 
Popes  of  those  days,  Leo  and  Gregory,  had  been 
monks;  and  when  they  became  the  heads  of  the 
Church,  they  made  use  to  its  fullest  extent  of  the 
capacity  of  their  brethren  for  labor  among  the  heathen. 
I  need  not  go  over  again  the  story  of  the  conversion 


WORK  OF  THE  BENEDICTINE  MONKS.  339 

of  the  Anglo-Saxons  by  St.  Augustine,  or  that  of  the 
Germans  by  St.  Boniface,  but  we  must  remember  that 
both  of  these  men  were  monks,  sent  on  their  mission  by 
a  Pope  who  had  been  a  monk,  and  that  to  their  zeal  and 
practical  statesmanship  is  due  not  merely  the  form  but 
the  stability  of  the  organization  of  Christianity  in  those 
countries. 

The  Benedictine  monk  was  in  the  truest  sense  the 
pioneer  of  civilization  and  Christianity  in  those  regions 
where  it  was  dangerous  even  for  armed  men  to  go. 
Moreover,  it  was  he  who,  in  his  cloister,  with  the  inces- 
sant din  of  arms  around  him,  preserved  and  transcribed 
ancient  manuscripts,  both  Christian  and  pagan,  and  who 
recorded  his  observations  of  current  events,  thus  giving 
us  the  best  materials  we  now  possess  for  the  history  of 
remote  times.  The  first  musicians,  farmers,  painters,  and 
statesmen  in  Europe,  after  the  downfall  of  Imperial 
Rome  and  during  the  invasions  of  the  barbarians,  were 
monks.  Whatever  of  earnestness,  zeal,  activity,  and 
true  statesmanship,  combined  with  the  self-denying  spirit 
of  Christianity,  we  observe  for  nearly  five  centuries  of 
European  history,  we  may  regard,  if  not  as  the  actual 
work  of  monks,  yet  as  done  under  their  influence  and 
direction. 

The  monastic  system,  like  all  others,  had  its  period  of 
prosperous  activity,  to  be  followed  by  that  of  decline. 
The  monasteries  became  very  rich,  and  although,  of 
course,  individual  monks  still  possessed  no  property,  yet 
after  the  death  of  Charlemagne  and  until  the  close  of 


340  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  eleventh  century  they  suffered  from  the  inevitable 
corruption  of  pride  and  laziness.  Their  zeal  thus  be- 
came cooled,  and  their  energies  diverted  from  the  work 
which  the  Church  had  assigned  them.  Their  real  power 
and  influence  were  gone  with  their  poverty.  And  yet  so 
persistent  was  the  general  belief  in  the  value,  both  to  the 
Church  and  the  world,  of  a  true  type  of  monkhood,  that 
good  men  in  the  darkest  days  prayed  for  its  restoration. 
•  Just  then  appeared  the  greatest  reformer  of  the  abuses 
of  the  monastic  life,  if  not  the  greatest  monk  in  history, 
St.  Bernard  (1091-1153).  He  revived  the  practice  in 
the  monastery  of  Citeaux,  which  he  first  entered,  and  in 
that  of  Clairvaux,  which  he  afterwards  founded,  of  the 
sternest  discipline  which  had  been  enjoined  by  St.  Bene- 
dict. He  became  the  ideal  type  of  the  perfect  monk, 
enthusiastic,  ardent,  austere,  intolerant,  forgetting  him- 
self, and  wholly  filled  with  a  burning  zeal  for  the  tri- 
umph of  the  Church.  His  theory  and  practice  were  that 
society,  the  family,  all  human  interests,  were  nothing; 
the  Church  everything.  The  power  which  a  true  monk, 
according  to  the  standard  of  those  days,  might  wield 
over  the  minds  of  the  people  is  shown  by  the  variety  of 
offices  St.  Bernard  was  asked  to  fill.  He  was  not  a  Pope, 
but  he  was  greater  than  any  Pope  of  his  day,  and  for 
nearly  half  a  century  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church 
is  the  history  of  the  influence  of  one  monk,  the  Abbot 
of  Clairvaux.  He  was  appointed  by  the  King  of  France 
to  decide  which  of  the  candidates  for  the  papacy,  Inno- 
cent II.  or  Anacletus,  had  been  canonical  ly  elected.  At 


ST.  BERNARD.  341 


the  request  of  the  Knights  Templar,  he  drew  up  the 
original  statutes  for  that  semi-monastic,  semi-military 
order;  and  with  the  greatest  difficulty  he  withdrew  from 
Milan,  where  such  was  his  fame  that  the  citizens  insisted 
that  he  should  become  their  archbishop.  He  presided  at 
the  Council  of  Sens,  which  condemned  the  doctrines  of 
the  illustrious  but  unfortunate  Abelard  ;  and  so  extraor- 
dinary were  his  power  and  influence  that  he  was  appointed 
by  the  Pope  to  preach  the  second  Crusade,  a  duty  which 
he  performed  with  such  success  that  he  even  induced 
the  King  of  France  himself,  contrary  to  the  advice  of 
the  best  statesmen  of  the  country,  to  go  to  the  Holy 
Land  as  a  Crusader.  No  single  figure  is  as  conspicuous 
in  mediaeval  history  as  that  of  St.  Bernard,  if  we  except 
Charlemagne.  But  the  great  Emperor  was  the  world- 
monarch,  ruling  by  what  was  really,  no  matter  how  dis- 
guised, physical  force.  St.  Bernard  has  also  proved  a 
world-monarch,  whose  empire  did  not  cease  with  his 
death,  for  his  weapons  were  spiritual.  They  were  "pov- 
erty, chastity,  and  obedience;"  and  these,  in  the  hands  of 
those  who  know  how  to  use  them,  history,  if  it  tells  us 
any  lesson  worth  remembering,  tells  us  are  irresistible. 

The  monks  have  been  called  the  right  arm  of  the 
papacy ;  and  it  would  seem  that  when  any  emergency 
arose  in  which  it  became  necessary  for  the  Church  to 
employ  a  distinct  agency  for  a  particular  purpose,  the 
object  was  accomplished  by  the  establishment  of  a  new 
order  of  monks.  This  appears  to  me  to  have  been  the 
case  when  the  orders  of  the  Preachers  or  Dominicans 

29* 


342  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

and  of  the  Minorites  or  Franciscans  were  founded. 
Both  of  these  orders  were  established  about  the  same 
time  (1215),  and  each  to  supply  a  need  which  was  then 
specially  felt.  Preaching  was  not  only  not  an  essential 
but  it  was  not  an  ordinary  part  of  the  Church  service  in 
the  Middle  Age.  Christianity  was  sacerdotal ;  it  com- 
manded ;  it  did  not  aim  to  persuade.  It  was  the  exclu- 
sive privilege  of  the  bishops  to  preach ;  but  the  larger 
portion  of  them  were  feudal  barons,  whose  education 
fitted  them  as  little  for  this  office  as  their  inclination 
prompted  them  to  assume  it.  The  education  of  the 
faithful  was  by  means  of  a  splendid  ritual.  But  by  the 
beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  the  vast  crowds 
which  flocked  to  the  universities  and  frequented  the  lec- 
tures of  even  so  heretical  a  teacher  as  Abelard,  as  well 
as  the  use  of  the  vernacular  or  common  language  in 
the  place  of  the  Latin,  made  it  very  clear  that  it  was  the 
duty  of  the  Church  to  instruct  the  faithful  in  doctrine 
as  well  as  to  arouse  devotional  feeling. 

Just  at  this  juncture  St.  Dominic,  founder  of  the  order 
of  the  Friar  Preachers,  appears.  He  was  a  Spaniard 
(born  in  1170),  and  he  first  becomes  conspicuous  in 
Languedoc  during  the  crusade  against  the  Albigenses, 
preaching  there  with  the  utmost  vehemence  against 
the  heresy  of  which  they  were  accused.  The  order  of 
Friar  Preachers  was  authorized  by  the  Pope  in  1213, 
and  shortly  afterwards  Dominican  convents  were  estab- 
lished throughout  Europe,  and  the  voices  of  Dominican 
preachers  penetrated  into  every  land.  Within  a  hundred 


ST.  FfiANCfS  OF  ASSISI.  343 

years  after  the  death  of  St.  Dominic  the  religious  houses 
of  his  order  numbered  four  hundred  and  seventy-two ; 
and  when  we  remember  that  to  this  order  was  specially 
given  by  the  Pope  the  defence  of  the  dogmas  of  the 
Church,  and  that  the  Inquisition  was  established  and 
placed  in  charge  of  the  Dominican  friars  for  the  en- 
forcement of  the  observance  of  those  dogmas,  we  can 
form  some  conception  of  the  power  and  influence  of 
these  monks  in  carrying  out  a  general  scheme  of  Church 
policy. 

St.  Dominic  had  supplied  one  great  need  of  the  Church 
in  the  thirteenth  century, — that  of  preaching  and  in- 
struction ;  and  it  was  reserved  for  another  great  saint, 
Francis  of  Assisi,  about  the  same  time,  to  reorganize  the 
ministration  of  that  Divine  charity  which  is  the  most 
characteristic  feature  of  practical  Christianity,  and  which 
has  in  all  ages  been  regarded  by  the  Church  as  the  very 
bond  of  peace  and  of  all  virtues.  In  the  Middle  Age, 
and  especially  in  its  later  days,  the  revolt  of  the  popular 
mind  was  against  the  wealth  of  the  clergy,  which,  it  was 
claimed,  removed  them  from  sympathy  with  the  poor 
and  suffering.  The  watchwords  of  that  revolt  which 
we  hear  among  such  heretics  as  the  Cathari,  the  Wal- 
denses,  or  poor  men  of  Lyons,  the  Lollards,  and  the  fol- 
lowers of  Wyclif,  were  poverty  and  self-sacrifice.  St. 
Francis  made  himself  the  echo  of  the  popular  complaint, 
and  sought  to  bring  about  a  reform  within  the  Church 
by  means  of  a  monastic  order  which  should  carry  the 
principle  of  the  renunciation  of  riches  and  a  love  for 


344  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  poor  to  a  point  undreamed  of  by  the  sectaries  around 
him.  St.  Francis  had  some  peculiar  advantages  for  the 
task  which  he  undertook.  He  was  emphatically,  in  our 
modern  phrase,  the  right  man  in  the  right  place  at  the 
right  time.  His  followers  compared  him  to  our  Lord; 
and  it  is  easier  to  find  fault  with  the  sort  of  idolatrous 
devotion  which  they  exhibited  towards  him,  than  to 
wonder  that  such  was  their  attitude,  for  of  all  human 
beings  who  ever  made  the  life  of  the  Son  of  Man  a 
model,  St.  Francis  seems  to  have  possessed  in  the  high- 
est degree  that  Divine  charity  preached  by  the  life  and 
the  words  of  the  Master. 

It  is  easy  to  say  that  St.  Francis  must  have  been  a 
little  crazy,  when  he  spoke  of  the  sun  as  his  brother,  the 
moon  and  the  stars  as  his  sisters,  and  the  earth  as  his 
mother,  and  when  he  called  even  upon  the  birds  of  the 
air  to  praise  the  Lord.  Yet  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  most 
of  the  great  reformers  in  history  have  been  accounted 
by  the  men  of  their  time  crazy,  and  perhaps  even  more 
curious  that  their  very  craziness  seems  to  have  given 
them  their  great  force.  The  Pope  himself,  Innocent  III., 
one  of  the  most  illustrious  men  who  ever  sat  in  the  chair 
of  St.  Peter,  was  disposed  to  regard  Francis  as  crazy 
when  he  asked  for  authority  to  establish  an  order  in 
which  the  members  were  to  be  bound  by  vows  which  it 
would  be,  in  his  opinion,  impossible  to  fulfil.  To  him  one 
of  the  Cardinals  made  an  answer  which  should  be  burned 
into  the  heart  of  every  man  who  is  in  earnest  in  his  de- 
sire to  do  good  to  his  fellow-creatures.  "  To  suppose," 


THE  LIFE   OF  THE  FRANCISCANS.        345 

he  said,  "that  anything  is  difficult  or  impossible  with 
God  is  to  blaspheme  Christ  and  His  gospel." 

So  the  order  of  the  Minor  Brethren,  or  Gray  Friars, 
was  established.  Their  life  was  to  differ  from  ordinary 
monastic  life  in  this,  that  they  were  not  to  be  secluded, 
as  were  the  older  orders,  from  the  world.  In  this  re- 
spect the  rule  of  St.  Dominic  was  the  same.  Those  who 
entered  the  order  of  St.  Francis  were  required  to  sell  all 
their  goods  and  distribute  its  price  to  the  poor.  They 
were  forbidden  to  receive  money  or  house  or  field ; 
strangers  and  pilgrims  in  this  world,  they  must  live  in 
poverty  and  humility.  They  must  always  be  poor,  for 
Christ  made  Himself  poor  for  us.  Even  their  houses 
and  their  churches  should  be  small,  mean  in  appearance, 
and  without  ornament.  St.  Francis  himself  was  the  living 
exemplar  of  all  these  precepts.  In  those  days  the  fetid 
suburbs  of  the  great  towns  had  engendered  a  virulent 
form  of  that  most  loathsome  disease,  the  Eastern  leprosy. 
St.  Francis  was  the  first  who  did  anything  in  a  properly 
organized  way  for  the  relief  of  these  miserable  outcasts, 
and  his  life  is  full  of  instances  of  his  heroic,  nay,  better, 
his  Christian  devotion  to  this  repulsive  duty.  His  fol- 
lowers were  to  visit  the  towns,  two  and  two,  in  just  so 
much  clothing  as  the  commonest  beggar  could  procure. 
They  were  to  sleep  at  night  tinder  arches  or  in  the 
porches  of  deserted  churches,  among  idiots,  lepers,  and 
outcasts,  to  beg  their  bread  from  door  to  door,  and  to 
set  an  example  of  piety  and  submission.  Francis,  as  it 
has  been  well  said,  was  the  saint  of  the  people,  and  of  a 


346  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

poetic  people  especially,  like  the  Italians.  His  system 
was  the  democracy  of  Christianity,  but  as  long  as  he  lived 
it  was  a  humble,  meek,  quiescent  democracy.  It  was, 
too,  a  sort  of  pacific  mysticism,  which  consoled  the  poor 
for  the  inequalities  of  this  life  by  the  hopes  of  heaven. 
It  spread  with  the  rapidity  of  a  contagion  through 
Europe.  To  the  lower  orders  everywhere  his  teachings 
seemed  almost  a  second  gospel,  and  he  himself  like  a 
second  Redeemer. 

It  is  not  pleasant  to  remember  that  the  grand  concep- 
tion of  the  Christian  life  embodied  in  the  precepts  and 
the  example  of  St.  Francis  was  not  destined  to  have  a 
permanent  duration.  The  lofty  ideal  of  his  rule  was 
not  long  maintained,  and  the  mean  appearance  which 
had  once  been  the  distinguishing  badge  of  the  mendicant 
friar  and  his  convent  was  exchanged  for  sumptuous 
churches  and  well-endowed  religious  houses.  The  spirit 
of  the  founder  was  gone,  and  the  true  source  of  the 
strength  of  his  order — its  poverty — went  with  it.  But 
its  history,  even  if  all  that  is  good  in  it  be  the  holy  life 
of  St.  Francis  and  the  sympathy  which  his  rule  exhibits 
with  the  poor  and  the  suffering,  contains  most  suggestive 
lessons  in  regard  to  the  real  life  of  the  Middle  Age. 

We  turn  now  to  consider  another  institution  or  prac- 
tice outside  of  the  formal  organization  of  the  Church 
and  the  State  which  colored  very  much  the  stream  of 
tendency  in  the  Middle  Age.  I  refer  to  chivalry,  which 
we  may  regard  as  representing  the  medieval  conception 
of  the  ideal  life  of  a  Christian  knight.  In  some  respects 


THE  MEDIAEVAL  KNIGHT.  347 

chivalry  may  be  considered  as  the  finest  and  most  con- 
summate flower  of  that  civilization  which  grew  out  of 
the  influence  of  the  Church  upon  the  Teutonic  warrior 
chief.  We  may  say  in  the  outset  that  the  knight  was 
not  often  in  fact,  what  he  is  represented  to  be  in  the 
romances  of  the  time,  a  man  whose  sole  aim  in  life  was 
the  defence  of  the  Church  and  the  championship  of  un- 
protected women ;  but  we  must  remember  that  such  was 
his  professed  vocation,  and  such  was  the  standard  by 
which  he  claimed  to  be  judged. 

The  mediaeval  knight  was  a  peculiar  and  exceptional 
type,  in  a  great  measure  the  growth  of  the  age,  and  one 
wholly  unlike  the  warrior  of  any  other  period  of  his- 
tory. He  bears  very  little  resemblance  in  his  conduct 
and  motives,  for  instance,  to  those  heroes  of  antiquity  of 
whose  exploits  we  read  in  the  Iliad.  Achilles  is  one 
of  those  heroes,  perhaps  the  greatest  of  them  all.  His 
answer  to  the  prayer  of  Hector  (whom  he  had  mortally 
wounded)  that  he  would  deliver  his  dead  body  for 
burial  to  his  father  is  not  that  of  a  hero,  but  of  a  sav- 
age. "  Cease,  wretched  one,"  he  says,  "  your  begging. 
I  wish  I  had  the  force  and  the  courage  to  devour  your 
quivering  flesh  as  a  return  for  the  evils  you  have  done 
me.  No !  if  your  father  Priam  should  offer  me  as  a 
ransom  for  your  body  its  weight  in  gold,  I  would  not 
give  it  up.  The  dogs  and  the  vultures  should  devour 
it."  Heroes  who  could  talk  in  this  way  were  not  likely 
to  be  very  civil  to  women.  Hear  the  manner  in  which 
Jupiter  upbraids  Juno:  "Remember  the  time  when  I 


348  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

hung  you  up  in  the  air  with  two  anvils  tied  to  your  feet 
and  your  hands  bound  by  a  golden  chain."  Greek 
women,  I  suppose,  must  have  been  very  attractive,  or 
there  would  probably  not  have  been  a  Trojan  War;  but 
it  is  rather  discouraging  to  find  that  Helen,  who  was 
carried  off  from  her  home  on  account  of  her  extraor- 
dinary beauty,  does  not  seem  to  be  certain  whether  she 
prefers  Menelaus  to  Paris;  and  as  to  Andromache,  I 
fear  that  constancy  was  not  one  of  her  virtues,  not- 
withstanding the  pathetic  parting  scene  between  Hector 
and  herself. 

The  mediaeval  knight  was  cast  in  a  different  mould. 
He  was  a  barbarian,  not  tamed  by  the  Church  so  as  to 
destroy  his  warlike  instincts,  but  rather  taught  by  the 
Church  to  employ  that  sentiment  of  personal  indepen- 
dence and  love  of  adventure  which  formed  the  very 
essence  and  force  of  his  nature  in  its  defence.  He  was 
taught  to  render  valuable  service  chiefly  in  two  ways, — 
in  the  defence  of  the  Church  proper  when  its  orthodoxy 
needed,  as  it  often  did  in  those  wild  days,  armed  advo- 
cacy, and  in  shielding  from  cruelty  and  oppression  cer- 
tain crosses  of  the  suffering  and  feeble,  especially  women, 
whose  protection  had  always  been  a  particular  object  of 
the  Church's  solicitude.  There  seems  to  me  to  have 
been  no  greater  instance  of  the  Church's  triumph  in 
the  Middle  Age  than  this  conversion  of  the  weapons  of 
barbarism  into  agencies  for  doing  effectively  its  work. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  explain  the  reasons  for  the  progress 
of  the  Church  in  other  directions,  extraordinary  as  it 


BARBARIANS   TAUGHT  BY  THE   CHURCH.  349 

was.  We  can  in  a  measure,  at  least,  understand  it  by 
recalling  its  thorough  organization  and  wise  administra- 
tion, by  means  of  which  history  shows  us  that  great  re- 
sults in  other  undertakings,  both  before  and  since,  have 
been  achieved.  But  when  the  problem  was  not  merely 
how  to  subdue  the  rebellious  elements  in  the  Teutonic 
character  by  the  force  of  the  Church's  teachings,  but  so 
to  control  and  guide  them  as  to  make  these  rude  war- 
riors her  most  devoted  champions,  its  successful  solution 
seems  little  short  of  marvellous.  How,  then,  were  Teu- 
tonic warriors  made  Christian  knights? 
.  As  I  have  before  said,  the  Church  was  at  first  the 
teacher  of  the  barbarians,  not  their  ally,  for  it  naturally 
hesitated  to  trust  chiefs  who  were  heathen  when  they 
were  not  Arians  with  that  control  over  its  organization 
which  had  always  been  exercised  by  the  orthodox  Ro- 
man Emperors.  Not  until  the  conversion  of  the  Franks, 
or  even  later,  the  date  of  the  coronation  of  Charlemagne, 
do  we  find  the  old  Imperial  relations  of  confidence  be- 
tween Church  and  State  re-established  in  full  vigor. 
When  the  alliance  was  renewed,  it  was  so  managed, 
strange  to  say,  that  the  conquests  of  the  Franks,  nay, 
even  the  ferocity  and  ambition  of  their  chiefs,  were 
made  to  minister  at  least  to  the  enlargement  of  the 
boundaries  of  the  Church.  Expeditions  against  the 
heathen  by  these  warriors  always  had  the  sanction  of 
the  Church.  A  new  way  of  serving  God  and  mam- 
mon at  the  same  time  seems  to  have  been  discovered, 

and  success  iu  such  enterprises  gratified   the   lust  of 

30 


350  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

conquest,  as  well  as,  in  the  opinion  of  the  age,  advanced 
God's  kingdom.  Wherever  the  Franks  conquered,  there 
was  orthodoxy  firmly  planted ;  and  this,  perhaps,  is  the 
explanation  of  the  complacency  with  which  the  Church 
regarded  such  wholesale  conversions  as  those  of  Charle- 
magne of  the  miserable  captives  on  the  banks  of  the 
Elbe,  who  saved  their  lives  by  abjuring  the  religion  of 
their  fathers,  or  of  the  followers  of  Clovis,  who  obeyed 
his  order  to  be  baptized  as  they  would  have  done  a 
command  to  attack  the  enemy. 

Christianity  and  war  thus  came  into  a  very  strange, 
but  a  very  active,  alliance,  such  as  we  see  illustrated 
afterwards  on  a  large  scale  in  the  Crusades."  To  fight 
for  the  Church  was  in  those  days  not  merely  the  highest 
duty,  but  the  noblest  ambition  also  of  those  whose 
fathers  had  always  regarded  courage  in  battle  as  the  sum 
of  all  virtue.  It  was  very  often,  as  may  be  supposed, 
their  only  way  of  showing  their  devotion  to  it.  Grad- 
ually the  effect  of  this  strange  combination  was  seen  in 
the  belief,  which  soon  became  universal,  not  merely  that 
the  worthiest  end  of  life  was  to  do  the  Church's  bidding, 
but  to  do  it  in  the  only  way  possible  for  a  layman,  by 
the  power  of  his  sword.  Hence  lay  service  of  a  special 
kind  was  recognized  as  one  of  the  agencies  of  the  Church, 
and  out  of  the  recognition  by  the  Church  of  such  a  ser- 
vice arose  the  institution  of  chivalry  or  knighthood.  No 
one  was  born  to  such  an  honor  in  the  earlier  time,  not 
even  the  king  himself.  It  was  open,  like  the  priesthood, 
to  all  freemen.  He  upon  whom  it  was  conferred  made 


THE  POINT  OF  HONOR.  351 

previously  due  proof  of  his  fitness,  and  was  then  set 
apart  for  his  work  by  a  solemn  consecration,  pro- 
nouncing vows  intended  to  be  as  binding  as  those 
taken  by  the  priest  at  his  ordination.  His  sword  was 
blessed  by  the  priest  at  the  altar,  in  token  that  thence- 
forth it  should  be  used  only  in  defending  the  cause  of 
God  and  of  the  weak  and  oppressed. 

The  Church,  not  always  trusting  to  a  sense  of  duty  as 
a  restraining  power,  appealed  to  another  motive,  which 
often  controlled  the  knight  when  every  other  was  pow- 
erless, and  that  was  his  pride  in  maintaining  a  position 
which  was  supposed  to  be  befitting  his  rank  and  station. 
Out  of  this  grew  that  sentiment  of  personal  honor  which 
was  so  characteristic  a  feature  of  chivalry.  Men  who 
could  never  be  taught  to  do  what  was  right  because  it 
was  right,  soon  learned  to  do  right  because  it  was  a 
becoming  thing  in  them,  as  knights  and  nobles,  to  do 
so.  Noblesse  oblige  was  the  motto  of  their  order.  This 
sentiment  of  honor  was  a  deep-seated  instinct  with  these 
children  of  the  North,  who  are  said  to  have  felt  a  stain 
upon  that  honor  like  a  wound.  It  continued  to  be  the 
governing  principle  of  the  most  noble  among  them  long 
after  the  standard  of  what  was  honorable  and  the  stand- 
ard of  what  was  true  and  right  differed  greatly.  The 
general  notions  prevailing  at  a  particular  time  in  regard 
to  the  point  of  honor  formed  the  practical  guide  for  the 
conduct"  of  the  knights,  affecting  them  very  much  as 
public  opinion  affects  people's  actions  now. 

Chivalry  must  not  be  regarded  as  maintaining,  in  any 


352  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

proper  sense,  a  moral  code.  We  find  even  in  typical 
knights  the  strange  juxtaposition  in  the  same  person  of 
brute  force  with  the  meekness  and  gentleness  of  the 
Christian  ;  the  superb  pride  and  arrogance  of  the  barba- 
rian with  the  punctilious  observance  of  the  most  digni- 
fied and  courtly  forms  of  intercourse;  a  spirit  of  rapacity, 
cruelty,  and  injustice,  often  restrained  only  by  the  fear 
lest  giving  way  to  it  would  be  deemed  unknightly;  a 
gross  irregularity  in  the  marriage  relation,  combined  with 
a  pretentious  knight-errantry  which  strove  to  redress 
the  wrongs  of  every  oppressed  woman  except  those  of 
the  knight's  own  wife.  This  is  a  strange  jumble ;  but 
it  means  that  while  knightly  life  was  too  often  soiled  by 
the  common  coarse  life  of  the  time,  still  it  bore  within 
it  a  seed  which  was  imperishable,  and  which  has  become 
one  of  the  most  precious  portions  of  that  heritage  which 
comes  to  us  from  the  Middle  Age.  The  modern  gentle- 
man in  his  best  estate  is  the  true  successor  of  the  medi- 
aeval knight,  and  his  code  of  conduct,  where  it  is  not 
wholly  based  upon  a  sense  of  duty,  rests  upon  a  sen- 
timent of  personal  honor,  which  teaches  him  to  do 
some  things  and  to  avoid  others  because  in  so  doing  he 
does  what  he  conceives  to  be  worthy  and  becoming  his 
position.  The  unwritten  code  of  the  gentleman  is  as 
binding  upon  him  as  the  vows  of  the  knight,  and  for 
the  same  reason,  namely,  because  he  scorns  to  do  an 
unworthy  act. 

I  have  little  time  left  to  speak  of  the  Crusades.     "With 
the  main  events   of    that  history  I  must  suppose  my 


THE   CRUSADES.  353 


readers  sufficiently  familiar,  or  at  any  rate  the  means 
of  refreshing  the  memory  are  within  reach  should  it  be 
needful  to  do  so.  I  wish  now  specially  to  draw  attention 
to  a  certain  aspect  of  the  Crusades,  or  rather  of  the  cru- 
sading spirit  which  brought  about  alike  the  wars  against 
the  Albigenses,  the  conflict  with  the  Saracens  in  Spain, 
as  well  as  the  Crusades,  commonly  so  called,  in  the  Holy 
Land.  It  was  all  the  direct  outgrowth  of  the  combina- 
tion of  monasticism  with  knighthood.  In  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Church  in  those  days  there  was  no  machinery 
save  that  moved  by  the  undying  energy  of  the  monks 
and  of  the  knights  which  could  have  set  on  foot  those 
vast  expeditions  which,  for  nearly  two  hundred  years, 
embarked  for  the  East.  Some  of  the  greatest  Popes 
(Sylvester  II.  and  Gregory  VII.  among  others)  preached 
with  all  their  authority  the  holiness  of  the  cause,  urged 
upon  every  man  the  duty  of  assuming  the  cross,  and 
promised  the  highest  rewards  of  the  future  life  to  those 
who  should  fall  fighting  for  the  rescue  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre ;  but  nothing  was  done  until  Peter  the  Hermit 
and  St.  Bernard  roused  the  passions  of  the  European 
chivalry  against  the  Infidel.  The  Crusades,  as  is  well 
known,  after  the  first  ardor  had  cooled,  were  made  by 
their  leaders  a  pretext  for  a  policy  in  the  East  which 
was  wholly  condemned  by  the  Church  as  foreign  to  the 
original  design,  and  in  the  pursuit  of  which  the  great 
central  idea  which  gave  them  birth  was  either  forgotten 
or  ignored.  But  in  the  beginning  those  who  went  were 

in   terrible   earnest;   they  were  in  earnest  not   merely 

30* 


354  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

because  monks  and  knights  had  roused  their  zeal  when 
Popes  and  bishops  had  failed,  but  because  these  monks 
and  knights  only  asked  them  to  follow  where  they  them- 
selves led.  The  first  Crusaders  may  have  been  very 
ignorant  and  very  fanatical,  but  these  very  qualities  led 
them  to  do  some  very  grand  as  well  as  some  very  foolish 
things.  Take  this  illustration  for  instance  in  regard  to 
the  point  of  honor.  When  the  army  reached  Antioch, 
the  Moslems,  evidently  puzzled  to  understand  why  this 
immense  array  should  come  from  the  ends  of  the  earth 
to  secure  the  free  admission  of  pilgrims  to  a  sepulchre, 
offered  to  permit  the  army  to  enter  Jerusalem  if  they 
would  do  so  without  their  arms.  This  offer  was  repelled 
with  scorn  by  the  knightly  leaders  of  the  Crusaders,  who 
felt  that  the  object  of  the  expedition  had  not  been  gained 
unless  the  Holy  City  was  conquered  by  the  sacrifice  of 
their  own  blood.  Again,  what  a  picture  do  we  see  of 
the  religion  of  the  time,  and  of  the  strange  combination 
of  pride  and  humility  which  marked  the  ideal  knight, 
when  we  find  Godfrey  de  Bouillon  refusing  to  become 
King  of  Jerusalem !  "  No,  no,"  said  that  highest  type 
of  chivalry ;  "  let  me  be  only  the  defender  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre:  think  not  that  I  can  ever  wear  a  golden 
crown  here  where  the  King  of  kings,  Jesus  Christ  the 
Son  of  God,  wore  a  crown  of  thorns  on  that  day  when 
He  died  for  the  sins  of  the  world." 

As  in  the  East,  so  in  the  West  the  crusading  spirit  was 
kept  alive  and  made  aggressive  by  the  monks  and  the 
knights.  An  illustration  of  this  may  be  found  in  the 


THE  ALBIGENSES.  355 

crusade  against  the  Albigenses,  which  has  been  called 
by  an  eminent  historian  the  conquest  of  municipal  or 
republican  France,  or  that  portion  of  the  country  south 
of  the  river  Loire,  by  feudal  or  knightly  France,  or  that 
portion,  speaking  roughly,  to  the  north  of  that  river. 
The  first  had  all  the  culture,  refinement,  and  Roman 
civilization  of  the  time,  but  with  it  loose  habits  of  living 
and  opinions  regarded  as  heretical.  Pope  Innocent  III., 
once  himself  a 'monk,  determined  to  extirpate  this  heresy 
by  exterminating  the  inhabitants  and  filling  their  places 
with  good  Catholics.  He  called  upon  Count  Raymond 
of  Toulouse,  the  sovereign  of  the  country,  to  destroy  his 
own  subjects  who  were  alleged  to  be  heretics,  and  upon 
his  neglect  or  refusal  to  do  so  he  directed  that  a  crusade 
should  be  preached  against  them.  His  principal  agents 
in  this  work  were  the  Dominican  friars,  led  by  St.  Dom- 
inic and  the  monks  of  Citeaux.  In  answer  to  their 
frantic  appeals  for  aid  in  maintaining  the  orthodoxy 
of  the  Church,  and  with  the  promise  of  extravagant 
rewards  both  of  an  earthly  and  a  heavenly  nature, 
the  petty  chieftains  of  Northern  and  Western  France 
with  their  retainers  rushed  down  upon  unhappy  Langue- 
doc  and  Provence  in  overwhelming  numbers.  There, 
under  the  command  of  Simon  de  Montfort,  the  lord 
of  an  unimportant  fief  in  the  neighborhood  of  Paris, 
they  waged  for  many  years  one  of  the  cruellest  wars  in 
history,  strangely  called  a  "  holy  war."  By  this  war  the 
country  was  wellnigh  ruined,  the  inhabitants  killed  or 
driven  out  of  it,  and  its  ancient  government  completely 


356  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

overthrown.  Still,  the  orthodox  faith  was  re-established, 
the  zeal  of  the  monks  triumphed;  but  the  knights  who 
had  been  the  right  arm  of  the  Church  in  this  conflict, 
and  who  had  hoped  when  they  engaged  in  the  crusade 
to  divide  that  fair  land  among  themselves,  founding 
therein  a  large  number  of  petty  sovereignties,  were  (it  is 
satisfactory  to  know)  cheated  at  least  of  their  earthly 
reward,  the  province  at  the  close  of  the  war  being  annexed 
to  the  crown  of  France. 

The  history  of  Spain  in  the  Middle  Age  is  the  history 
of  a  crusade  of  eight  hundred  years'  duration.  From 
the  battle  of  Xeres,  in  712,  to  the  final  expulsion  of  the 
Saracens  from  Granada,  in  1492,  there  was  in  that 
country  a  perpetual  conflict  between  the  Cross  and  the 
Crescent.  The  Visigothic  Christians,  driven  by  the  vic- 
torious Saracens  to  the  mountains  of  Galicia,  kept  there 
the  purity  of  the  faith,  and  never  permitted  their  pur- 
pose of  revenge  to  falter.  They  needed  no  monks  to 
stimulate  their  ardor;  and  Spain  presents  a  curious  in- 
stance in  history  of  a  country  made  Catholic  par  excel- 
lence by  the  crusading  spirit  of  Christian  knights  alone. 
To  them  the  idea  of  country  and  of  religion  was  one 
and  inseparable,  and  as  they  slowly  advanced,  in  the 
course  of  ages  winning  one  district  after  another  by  their 
swords  from  the  hated  Moslems,  they  left  ineffaceable 
marks  of  their  blind  zeal  for  the  faith  at  every  step, — 
marks  so  ineffaceable  that  they  are  easily  recognized  at 
this  day  in  the  condition  and  policy  of  that  country. 
The  brilliant  culture  of  the  Saracens  found  no  favor  in 


CRUSADERS  IN  SPAIN.  357 

the  eyes  of  these  Crusaders,  for  it  was  all  tainted  with 
heresy,  and  to  them  heresy  was  an  accursed  thing.  The 
great  works  of  public  utility  which  had  marked  the 
Saracenic  occupation  of  Spain, — a  system  of  irrigation, 
for  instance,  the  fruit  of  their  knowledge  of  hydraulic 
science,  by  which  the  plains  of  Granada  and  Andalusia 
were  made  the  most  fertile  districts  of  Europe,  gardens 
which  they  planted,  rivalling  in  beauty  those  of  far- 
famed  Damascus,  universities  which  they  founded,  whose 
reputation  was  so  wide-spread  that  they  numbered  among 
their  pupils  a  monk  who  afterwards  became  Pope  as 
Sylvester  II.,  grand  libraries,  the  treasure-houses  of  the 
wisdom  of  the  past,  at  that  time  far  exceeding  in  the 
number  of  the  books  they  contained  those  of  any  country 
in  Europe,  mosques  and  palaces  whose  architecture  even 
now  excites  the  wonder  of  the  world, — all  these  things 
were  not  only  valueless,  they  were  hateful,  to  the  Spanish 
Crusaders,  and  they  were  destroyed  because  they  had  the 
mark  of  the  beast  upon  them. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  that  in  the  Middle 
Age  the  Saracens  in  Spain  were  vastly  superior  to  the 
inhabitants  of  any  other  country  in  Europe  in  their 
knowledge  of  science  and  its  applications  to  the  useful 
arts.  Yet  so  inseparably  was  hatred  of  their  religion 
associated  in  the  minds  of  their  conquerors  with  every- 
thing that  was  characteristic  of  the  Saracens,  that  Spain 
was  the  last  country  of  the  West  to  learn  those  useful 
arts  of  which  the  disciples  of  the  Prophet  had  been  the 
pioneers  on  her  own  soil.  By  a  natural  process,  the 


358  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

blind  zeal  against  the  Saracens  was  easily  transformed 
to  a  profound  contempt  for  the  occupations  in  which 
they  engaged,  and  especially  for  the  labor  which  pro- 
duced such  wonderful  results.  Hence  the  step  was  easy 
to  a  contempt  for  all  mechanical  labor;  and  hence  we  ob- 
serve in  the  history  of  Spain,  from  the  time  the  country 
was  occupied  by  the  Saracens  down  to  the  present  hour, 
that  nowhere  else  in  Europe  has  the  line  between  those 
who  work  and  those  who  do  not,  between  the  lords  of 
the  country  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  town,  between 
the  hidalgo  and  the  pechero,  between  the  soldier  and  the 
citizen,  been  so  strongly  and  deeply  marked.  We  shall 
find,  as  we  go  on  in  our  historical  investigations,  that 
labor  was  in  many  ways  the  great  civilizer  of  modern 
Europe.  As  it  did  its  work,  it  had  everywhere  to  over- 
come the  knightly  contempt  for  what  was  supposed  to 
be  its  servile  character;  but  in  Spain,  formidable  as  was 
this  obstacle,  it  became  wellnigh  insurmountable,  because 
it  was  intrenched  in  the  strongest  religious  prejudice. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

SCHOLASTIC  PHILOSOPHY,  THE   SCHOOLMEN,  AND   THE 
UNIVERSITIES. 

ONE  method  of  testing  what  the  true  life  of  a  nation 
is,  would  be  to  ascertain  its  theory  and  practice  in  regard 
to  the  education  of  the  young.  If  we  can  discover  what 
the  best  minds  of  a  nation  at  any  particular  age  of  its 
history  most  thoroughly  believe, — in  other  words,  what 
is  taught,  and  how  they  teach  it, — we  have  gained  some 
knowledge  of  the  principle  of  life  in  that  nation  and 
what  it  holds  most  dear  in  that  life.  Education  is,  of 
course,  a  broad  term,  and  in  its  widest  sense  it  includes 
ever}7  influence  which  affects,  by  precept  or  example,  the 
actions  of  human  beings.  In  this  sense  the  education  of 
the  Middle  Age,  of  which  its  peculiar  life  was  the  out- 
come, was  moulded  largely  by  forces  of  which  I  have 
spoken  in  preceding  chapters,  such  as  the  power  of  the 
Church,  the  remains  of  Roman  civilization,  feudalism, 
monasticism,  chivalry,  and  the  like.  The  question  now 
is,  what  did  the  life  thus  formed  teach  its  own  age  and 
those  which  succeeded  it,  and  what  methods  did  it 
employ?  The  impression  which  many  receive  is  that 
this  era  in  history  ought  to  serve  only  as  a  warning 
against  fundamental  errors;  that  necessarily  its  life  was  a 

life  of  force,  one  solely  of  conflict,  strife,  and  confusion. 

359 


360  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

Perhaps  this  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  it  was  formerly 
the  practice,  and  perhaps  in  some  quarters  still  is,  to 
speak  of  the  Middle  Age  as  the  "Dark  Ages"  meaning 
thereby  that  they  form  an  era  in  the  world's  history  in 
which  in  all  the  relations  of  life  the  governing  power 
was  pre-eminently  one  in  which  reason  and  justice  and 
truth  had  no  sway. 

When,  however,  we  come  to  explore  more  carefully  its 
inner  recesses,  we  find,  in  strange  juxtaposition  with  the 
reign  of  force  which  is  so  conspicuous  a  feature  of  the 
time,  a  very  rich,  abundant,  and  altogether  peculiar 
intellectual  life,  which  exhibited  its  power  in  the  efforts 
of  master-minds  to  uphold  the  theories  of  the  Middle 
Age  in  Church  and  State.  There  was,  too,  a  thoroughly 
organized  and  universally  adopted  system  of  scholastic 
education  designed  to  train  the  young  to  defend  these 
theories  on  grounds  of  reason  and  of  right,  and  they 
were  supposed  to  be  by  this  method  as  well  prepared 
for  the  performance  of  the  special  duties  of  the  life  which 
they  were  to  lead  as  our  young  men  are  educated  for  their 
future  work.  It  is  this  mediaeval  technical  education  of 
the  young,  so  different  from  ours,  that  we  propose  to 
examine  in  this  chapter,  as  throwing  light  on  the  life 
of  the  age.  That  system  was  one  which  we  may  now 
regard  as  characterized  by  fundamental  errors:  still,  it  is 
interesting  in  itself  to  study  the  scheme  and  methods  of 
instruction  in  Europe  for  nearly  a  thousand  years,  and, 
besides,  it  is,  like  feudalism,  a  very  curious  illustration  of 
the  life  of  the  time.  Like  feudalism,  too,  it  contains, 


IMPERIAL  SCHOOLS.  361 

notwithstanding  its  many  strange  features,  the  germs  of 
much  that  has  been  transplanted  into  our  own  modern 
systems.  We  shall  probably  find  in  it,  too,  another  illus- 
tration of  the  unbroken  continuity  of  history,  a  con- 
tinuity which  is  its  very  essence,  but  which  sometimes 
escapes  our  notice  as  it  is  hidden  from  our  view  for  a 
time  beneath  the  surface  of  passing  events.  We  should 
hardly  expect  at  first  to  find  any  of  the  missing  links 
which  go  to  make  up  the  chain  in  the  general  practice 
and  habit  of  scholastic  education  during  that  portion  of 
the  world's  history,  when  its  most  conspicuous  features 
were  the  tumult  and  strife  characteristic  of  the  Middle 
Age.  But  we  shall  discover,  if  I  mistake  not,  that  the 
medieval  systems  of  education  have  left  marks  in  history 
as  ineffaceable  as  medieval  theories  of  government  in 
Church  and  State. 

In  the  declining  Roman  Empire,  among  the  many 
agencies  of  civilization  which  the  Church  appropriated 
was  the  Imperial  organization  of  education.  During  the 
first  three  centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  schools,  liber- 
ally endowed  by  such  Emperors  as  Hadrian,  Marcus 
Aurelius,  Vespasian,  and  Theodosius,  existed  in  all  the 
large  cities  of  the  Empire,  East  and  West.  In  these 
schools  the  young  were  taught  to  read  correctly,  and  after- 
wards the  plots  of  plays  and  poems  were  explained  to 
them,  and  some  outline  of  history  given.  Much  time 
was  then  occupied  in  translating  passages  from  Greek 
into  Latin  and  then  back  again  into  Greek.  The  whole 

system  was  founded  upon  a  study  of  language,  upon  what 

31 


362  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

we  should  call  now  grammar  and  rhetoric;  and  this  was 
a  sensible  basis  for  the  object  sought  after,  which  was 
chiefly  to  make  the  young  man  who  was  trained  in  these 
schools  a  forensic  orator.  The  Church,  fully  alive  to  the 
necessity  of  educating  not  merely  her  clergy  but  the 
youth  of  the  better  class  of  the  laity  also,  was  at  times 
sorely  puzzled  to  determine  whether  they  should  be 
trained  in  schools  where  the  text-books  were  filled  with 
the  praises  of  the  heathen  gods  and  with  the  horrors  of 
the  heathen  mythology.  Unable  at  that  time  to  estab- 
lish schools  of  her  own,  the  Church  permitted  her  chil- 
dren to  attend  the  heathen  schools,  not  as  a  matter  of 
choice,  but  of  necessity.  Some  of  the  greatest  of  the 
early  Fathers  of  the  Church,  Augustine  and  Jerome 
for  instance,  had  been  in  their  youth  eminent  scholars 
after  the  Roman  pattern  ;  but  with  a  keen  recollection  of 
the  pleasures  of  their  early  studies  they  retained  such  a 
conviction  of  the  pernicious  influence  on  Christian  morals 
of  the  works  of  the  more  celebrated  writers  of  antiquity, 
that  all  their  influence  was  used  to  discountenance  as  far 
as  possible  their  study. 

With  the  invasion  of  the  Franks  the  Imperial  schools 
in  the  West  were  closed,  and  a  considerable  period  elapsed 
in  which  apparently  no  systematic  instruction  was  given 
anywhere  to  the  young.  The  revival  of  education,  as 
of  many  other  of  the  agencies  of  civilization  in  that 
truly  darkest  of  all  dark  days, — the  eighth  century, — 
was  due  to  the  Church.  By  its  authority  schools  attached 
to  each  cathedral  and  each  monastery  were  established. 


CATHEDRAL  SCHOOLS.  363 

From  these  schools  all  study  of  Pagan  authors  was 
necessarily  excluded.  The  system,  the  method,  the 
form  in  which  the  instruction  was  given,  did  not  differ 
much  from  that  which  had  been  used  in  the  Imperial 
schools.  The  boys  were  taught  to  read,  but  it  was  that 
they  might  study  the  Bible  and  understand  the  services ; 
to  write,  in  order  that  they  might  multiply  copies  of  the 
sacred  books  and  of  the  psalter;  to  understand  music, 
so  that  they  might  sing  with  due  effect  the  Ambrosian 
chant.  They  studied  arithmetic;  but  it  was  chiefly 
that  they  might  know  how  to  calculate  the  return  of 
Easter. 

Both  the  schools  attached  to  the  monasteries  and  those 
of  the  cathedrals  were  thus  thoroughly  ecclesiastical  in 
their  tone  and  spirit,  and  the  principal  object  was  to 
qualify  the  pupils,  as  I  have  said,  for  the  performance 
of  the  services  of  the  Church.  The  traditions  of  learn- 
ing, so  far  as  it  had  to  do  with  Pagan  antiquity,  were 
wholly  lost,  buried  in  the  invasion  that  overwhelmed 
all  that  was  distinctive  in  Roman  civilization.  For 
nearly  two  centuries  we  hear  of  the  studies  of  the 
monks  of  St.  Benedict  in  Italy  and  the  attempt  by 
St.  Boniface  to  transplant  into  Germany  the  Benedictine 
rule  with  its  obligations  to  study  by  the  monks,  of  the 
learning  of  the  Irish  monks,  and  especially  of  St.  Co- 
lumba  at  lona ;  but  it  is  evident  that  what  was  taught 
in  the  monastic  schools  was  very  narrow  and  meagre 
in  its  character,  and  the  reverse  of  liberalizing  in  the 
modern  sense  in  its  spirit. 


364  MEDLEVAL  HISTORY. 

Out  of  one  of  these  schools,  however,  came  a  man 
who  was  to  open  a  new  era  in  education  in  Western 
Europe,  and  that  was  Alcuin,  the  head  of  the  cathedral 
school  of  York.  This  school,  strange  to  say,  was  situ- 
ated near  the  outer  limit  of  civilization,  in  a  country 
more  utterly  and  purely  Teutonic, — that  is  to  say,  more 
barbarous  and  less  Roman, — at  that  time,  than  any  other 
portion  of  Western  Europe.  And  yet  the  school  itself 
was  full  of  the  traditions  and  methods  of  St.  Benedict, 
and  of  Pope  Gregory  the  Great,  his  disciple  and  admirer. 
Although  in  so  remote  a  corner  of  the  world,  the  ex- 
planation of  the  cause  of  the  great  eminence  of  this 
school  is  not  difficult.  The  secret  is  to  be  found  in  the 
character  of  the  library  attached  to  the  school.  This 
library  contained  not  only  the  dogmatic  works  of  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  but  portions,  at  least,  of  the 
writings  of  Virgil,  of  Lucan,  of  Pliny,  of  Cicero,  and 
of  various  other  classical  authors. 

Charlemagne,  who  aspired  to  be  not  merely  the  con- 
queror of  the  world,  but  its  civil izer  also,  met  Alcuin  in 
Parma  towards  the  close  of  the  eighth  century;  and, 
with  that  sure  judgment  of  human  character  which  is 
one  of  the  gifts  of  truly  great  men,  he  invited  the 
scholar  to  reside  at  his  court  at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  and  to 
establish  in  the  palace  itself  a  school,  in  which  those 
who  were  looking  forward  to  holding  high  positions  in 
the  Church  and  State  under  him  should  become  pupils. 
The  establishment  of  this  school  forms  an  era  in  the 
history  of  education;  for  although  one  of  its  objects, 


ALCUIN  AS  A    TEACHER.  365 

like  that  of  the  cathedral  and  monastic  schools,  was  to 
confirm  those  who  were  there  instructed  in  the  orthodox 
faith,  yet  the  position  of  the  scholars,  many  of  whom 
seem  to  have  been  of  the  laity,  and  the  method  of  teach- 
ing adopted,  differed  from  those  found  elsewhere.  In  his 
zeal  for  learning,  Charlemagne  himself  became  a  pupil ; 
and  his  example  was  followed  by  his  three  sons,  by  his 
wife,  by  his  sister, — in  short,  by  all  the  members  of  the 
royal  family, — and  by  other  distinguished  personages  at 
his  court.  Alcuin  taught  at  this  school  of  the  palace 
Grammar,  Rhetoric,  Dialectics  or  Logic,  Arithmetic, 
Geometry,  Music,  and  Astronomy, — that  is  to  say,  three 
arts  and  four  sciences,  as  they  were  then  classified, — the 
trivium  and  quadrivium,  as  this  method  of  instruction 
was  afterwards  called  in  the  mediaeval  universities.  It 
may  be  admitted  that  this  seems  a  strange  division  of 
the  subjects  of  human  knowledge  and  inquiry ;  and  yet 
it  embraced  a  good  deal  more  than  would  now  be  taught 
under  such  heads,  and  all  that  was  at  that  time  sup- 
posed to  have  anything  to  do  with  the  development  of  a 
man  as  a  Christian  and  a  good  subject  of  the  Emperor. 
Alcuin's  ignorance  of  some  of  the  elementary  notions 
of  grammar,  rhetoric,  and  particularly  of  astronomy,  is 
very  conspicuous:  still,  with  all  his  blunders,  he  possessed 
that  which  is  perhaps  the  most  valuable  gift  of  the 
teacher,  the  power  of  awakening  in  the  minds  of  his  pu- 
pils interest  in  the  subjects  taught.  Charlemagne's  zeal, 
at  least,  was  so  stimulated  by  the  knowledge  he  gained, 

poor  and  starving  as  it  seems  to  us,  that  he  issued  an 

31* 


366  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

edict  or  capitulary  in  787  which  has  been  called  the 
great  charter  of  modern  European  education.  In  this 
he  tells  the  bishops  that  the  study  of  letters,  both  for 
their  own  instruction  and  for  the  purpose  of  teaching 
others,  should  be  regularly  kept  up  among  the  clergy, 
and  that  such  learning  is  absolutely  essential  if  they 
desire  to  understand  the  mysteries  of  the  faith  and  the 
true  meaning  of  the  figurative  and  allegorical  language 
of  the  Scriptures.  This  edict  was  followed  by  two 
others  before  the  close  of  the  century.  In  the  first  the 
Emperor  directs  that  candidates  for  orders  shall  not  be 
taken  solely,  as  formerly,  from  the  servile  class,  but  from 
the  sons  of  freemen,  and  in  the  other,  after  arguing  that 
study  is  a  means  whereby  the  life  of  the  righteous  is 
nourished  and  ennobled  and  the  man  himself  fortified 
against  temptation,  he  directs  that  hereafter,  in  all  the 
schools,  provision  shall  be  made  for  the  gratuitous  in- 
struction of  the  children  of  the  laity.  We  think  of 
Charlemagne  as  the  monarch  and  conqueror  of  the  world. 
Perhaps  we  do  not  as  often  recall  the  imperishable  and 
fundamental  ideas  upon  which  he  really  built,  not  merely 
the  idea  of  a  universal  monarchy  after  the  pattern  of 
Imperial  Rome,  but  also  an  idea  which  was  to  be  the 
most  fruitful  of  all  that  rule  us  in  modern  times, — 
that  of  universal  and  gratuitous  education. 

But  Charlemagne  seems,  like  many  others  before  and 
since,  to  have  outgrown  his  teacher,  even  when  that 
teacher  was  so  eminent  a  man  as  Alcuin.  Among  other 
subjects  in  which  the  keen  inquiring  mind  of  the 


CLEMENT  HEAD  OF  THE  PALACE  SCHOOL.     367 

Emperor  had  a  special  interest  was  astronomy.  The 
planet  Mars  having  disappeared  from  the  heavens  for 
nearly  a  whole  year,  Charlemagne  naturally  asked  his 
teacher  what  could  be  the  meaning  of  this  phenomenon. 
He  was  told  that  the  sun  had  detained  the  planet  in 
its  course,  but  had  at  last  released  it  through  the  fear 
of  the  Nernsean  lion,  the  star  having  become  visible 
again  first  in  the  constellation  of  Leo. 

Even  in  those  days  this  theory  of  the  movement  of 
the  heavenly  bodies  must  have  been,  to  say  the  least, 
very  unsatisfactory  to  a  man  like  Charlemagne.  At  all 
events,  we  find  him  soon  after  transferring  Alcuin  from 
the  palace  school  to  the  post  of  abbot  of  the  monastery 
of  St.  Martin  at  Tours,  at  that  time  the  most  richly  en- 
dowed religious  house  in  Europe.  His  place  at  the  head 
of  the  palace  school  was  supplied  by  an  Irish  monk 
named  Clement.  The  monasteries  in  Ireland,  as  has 
been  said,  were  the  refuges  of  learned  men  during  the 
whole  period  when  the  invasions  of  the  barbarians  had 
swept  nearly  every  vestige  of  the  old  civilization  from 
the  Continent.  A  form  of  Christianity  grew  up  in  that 
island,  and  was  propagated  by  its  monks  in  Scotland  and 
the  northern  part  of  England,  which  was  peculiar  at 
least  in  this,  that  it  was  wholly  independent  of  the  au- 
thority of  the  Roman  See.  These  Irish  monks  studied 
astronomy  in  a  rational  way  in  order  to  determine  the 
correct  time  for  observing  Easter,  a  subject  in  those 
days  deemed  of  great  importance,  and  the  Irish  Church 
differed  from  the  Roman  in  regard  to  the  true  date 


368  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

of  that  festival.  The  Irish  monks  also  studied  certain 
of  the  Greek  philosophers,  not  merely  from  a  love  of 
learning,  but  also  that  they  might  thereby  train  them- 
selves in  those  dialectical  methods  of  reasoning  of  which 
Plato  and  Zeno,  and,  above  all,  Aristotle,  had  been  the 
chief  teachers.  The  clergy  of  the  Roman  obedience 
were  not  then  permitted,  as  I  have  stated,  to  study  for 
any  purpose  the  profane  authors,  and  this  not  merely 
because  true  orthodoxy  should  be  founded  on  faith  and 
not  on  reason,  but  because  it  was  said  that  such  was  the 
antagonism  between  Paganism  and  Christianity  that  it 
was  unbecoming  that  the  praises  of  Jove  and  of  Christ 
should  be  spoken  even  in  the  same  language. 

Charlemagne,  as  I  have  had  occasion  often  to  say, 
was  a  man  far  above  his  age  in  general  ideas,  and  was 
not  to  be  governed  in  his  grand  scheme  of  education  by 
petty  and  narrow  speculations  such  as  these.  Having 
found  an  Irish  monk  who  really  knew  something  about 
astronomy  and  was  familiar  with  Greek  authors,  he  hesi- 
tated not,  to  the  great  disgust  of  the  orthodox  clergy  of 
his  Empire,  with  Alcuin  at  its  head,  to  install  Clement 
at  once  as  the  chief  of  the  palace  school.  He  builded 
better  than  he  knew,  for  by  this  act  he  was  unconsciously 
shaping  the  course  and  direction  of  the  higher  mediaeval 
education,  and  beginning  a  controversy  in  which  for 
ages  great  men  fought  on  both  sides,  one  party  under 
the  banner  of  free  inquiry  and  of  reason,  and  the  other 
under  that  of  faith  and  the  authority  of  the  Church. 
We  know  little  of  the  instructions  of  Clement  of  Ireland, 


INFLUENCE   OF  THE  PALACE  SCHOOL.     369 

but  it  is  clear  from  what  followed  that  the  Irish  school 
of  philosophy,  which  afforded  training  so  unlike  that 
given  on  the  Continent,  maintained  its  footing  at  the 
court  of  the  Carloviugian  Emperors  during  the  larger 
portion  of  the  ninth  century.  This  novel  system  of 
philosophy  and  dialectics  was  taught  by  a  succession  of 
Irish  monks,  the  chief  of  whom  was  the  famous  John 
Scotus  Erigena,  who  became  attached  to  the  court  in  the 
time  of  Charles  the  Bald,  the  grandson  of  Charlemagne. 
Of  his  special  influence  I  shall  speak  hereafter;  but  the 
point  now  requiring  our  attention  is  this,  that  the  period 
during  which  the  narrow,  technical,  and  almost  formal 
system  of  instruction  adopted  by  Alcuin  had  sufficed 
for  all  wants  had  passed,  and  that  a  philosophy  upon  a 
broader  basis  and  with  higher  aims  kindled  the  zeal  of 
scholars.  From  the  palace  school  at  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
after  its  reorganization,  went  out  pupils  who  soon  be- 
came masters,  and  who,  moving  from  place  to  place  after 
the  manner  of  that  age,  and  propagating  their  doctrines, 
spread  the  love  of  the  new  philosophy  and  gained  prose- 
lytes everywhere.  Shortly  after,  the  Church  schools 
themselves,  becoming  tired  of  teaching  only  grammar 
and  arithmetic,  were  desirous  of  introducing  the  study 
of  philosophical  methods ;  renowned  philosophers  often 
became  the  heads  of  these  schools,  and  taught  with  such 
brilliancy  their  favorite  theories  that,  although  many  of 
them  became  chief  dignitaries  of  the  Church,  their  fame 
with  their  contemporaries  as  well  as  with  posterity  rests 
upon  their  having  been  great  teachers,  and  not  upon 


370  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

their  having  held  exalted  positions  in  the  hierarchy  of 
the  Church  or  the  State. 

The  philosophy  which  these  men  taught  is  known 
in  history  as  the  Scholastic  philosophy,  and  they  as  its 
teachers  are  called  Schoolmen.  For  six  hundred  years 
this  system  and  method  of  philosophizing  was  taught  in 
the  schools  and  universities  of  Western  Europe,  and  was 
regarded  as  the  means  of  solving  the  darkest  and  most 
intricate  problems  of  human  life.  It  has  been  the  fashion 
of  modern  times  to  decry  this  system  as  a  meaningless 
one,  and  as  utterly  unfitted  for  the  purpose  to  which  it 
was  applied.  The  terms  "scholastic"  and  "schoolmen" 
have  been  made  terms  of  opprobrium  ;  the  philosophers 
of  the  Middle  Age  have  been  regarded  as  blind  leaders 
of  the  blind,  and  their  method  of  solving  the  great 
problems  of  the  universe  simply  as  a  sort  of  technical 
jargon  without  any  reality  or  practical  outcome,  and 
amounting  to  hardly  more  than  a  mere  play  on  words. 
The  schoolmen  who  were  the  teachers  of  the  Middle 
Age  had,  it  is  said,  more  to  do  with  making  that  age 
dark  than  either  the  Churchmen  or  the  knights. 

The  controversies  of  the  schoolmen  and  their  methods 
have,  it  is  true,  been  long  since  forgotten ;  and  yet  it  ill 
becomes  us  as  students  of  history  to  disdain  the  investi- 
gation of  a  system  which  for  so  many  ages  provided  the 
intellectual  food  of  Europe.  And  the  very  first  thing 
which  strikes  us  as  we  consider  it  is  that,  like  feudalism, 
it  was  a  universal  system,  and  one  which  remained  in  full 
force  until  the  conditions  of  life  in  Europe  were  wholly 


SCHOLASTICISM.  371 

changed,  and  hence  that  there  must  have  been  some- 
thing in  it  which  made  it  suited  to  the  circumstances  of 
the  time  in  which  it  was  supported  by  this  general 
opinion.  I  shall  endeavor  to  give  some  account  of  this 
mysterious  subject,  well  aware  of  the  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  satisfactorily  explaining  it.  In  the  first  place, 
then,  it  is  to  be  regarded  simply  as  a  method,  or  agency, 
or  instrument, — an  organon,  as  the  word  is  used  by  Aris- 
totle and  Bacon, — of  teaching  the  truth.  It  was  not  in 
itself,  at  least  at  first,  a  science,  but  a  method  agreed 
upon  by  those  who  held  differing  views  on  abstract  sub- 
jects, by  which  the  correctness  of  those  views  might  be 
ascertained,  and  a  standard  established  by  which  their 
differences  could  be  measured.  The  usual  explanation  of 
scholasticism  is  that  its  object  was  to  reconcile  revelation 
with  reason,  to  establish  the  truth  of  the  Christian  mys- 
teries by  the  syllogistic  form  of  reasoning  adopted  from 
Aristotle.  Of  course  it  is  true  that  all  schoolmen  were 
ecclesiastics,  and  that  there  were  certain  dogmas  of 
the  Church  concerning  the  being  and  nature  of  God, 
the  Trinity,  predestination,  free  will,  and  the  like,  which 
were  often  explained  and  defended  by  them  in  the  syl- 
logistic form ;  but  the  priest  and  the  philosopher  were 
never  merged  in  each  other.  The  sacraments  and  other 
Christian  mysteries  remained  always  in  the  province 
of  theology,  while  philosophy  was  permitted  and  en- 
couraged by  the  Church  to  investigate  the  vast  field 
outside.  In  all  times  and  under  all  systems  of  religion 
both  theologians  and  philosophers  have  agreed  that  the 


372  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

nature  of  the  Deity  may  be  a  proper  object  of  scientific 
study. 

How,  then,  did  this  system  grow  up,  and  how  did  it 
become  the  universal  solvent  of  all  the  great  problems 
which  disturbed  the  human  mind  in  the  Middle  Age? 
The  first  step  was  taken  in  the  schools  formed  after  the 
pattern  of  Charlemagne's  palace  school.  Dialectics  or 
logic,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  one  of  the  subjects 
taught  in  the  trivium,  or  the  elementary  department  of 
instruction  in  the  schools.  It  was  there  used  for  the  pur- 
pose of  explaining  the  meaning  of  words, — not  merely 
their  definition,  which  was  more  properly  the  province 
of  grammar  and  rhetoric,  but  the  relations  of  words  to 
each  other,  and  even  their  hidden  meanings.  The  result 
that  followed  from  this  practice  is  a  striking  illustration 
of  the  truth  of  the  statement  that  "  words  are  things." 
Take  for  instance  the  word  "  Will."  How  much  must 
one  know  if  he  comprehends  fully  the  meaning  of  that 
little  word ! — about  free-will,  for  instance,  its  relations 
with  foreknowledge,  the  limitations  of  its  power,  its  re- 
sponsibility, etc.  And  so  with  all  words  which  repre- 
sent abstract  ideas :  to  know  them  thoroughly  is  to  know 
clearly  the  things  they  represent.  But,  more  than  this, 
they  sought  to  know  the  true  logical  relations  of  words 
with  other  words;  and  hence  a  rudimentary  idea  of  science 
grew  up  which  is  nothing  more  than  such  a  classification 
of  our  knowledge  that  we  may  understand  the  true  rela- 
tion of  cause  and  effect.  Hence  logic,  which  sought  to 
establish  a  true  co-ordination  of  our  ideas  by  giving  us 


SCHOLASTIC  PHILOSOPHY.  373 

an  accurate  knowledge  of  the  meaning  and  relations  of 
the  words  used  in  expressing  them,  soon  became  not 
merely  the  master-science  but  the  only  science,  because 
it  had  drawn  all  the  others  to  itself.  It  was  the  key 
which  unlocked  them  all.  At  best  the  others,  such  as 
grammar,  arithmetic,  geometry,  taught  men  facts ;  logic 
was  the  true  bond  which  united  them  all  together  and 
showed  the  relations  of  each  to  the  other. 

It  was  in  the  endeavor,  first,  to  explain  the  mean- 
ing of  all  abstract  terms  and  their  relations,  and,  sec- 
ondly, to  defend  the  conclusions  so  reached  by  the  syl- 
logistic process,  that  the  scholastic  philosophy  was  led 
into  those  refined  and  subtile  distinctions  of  the  meaning 
of  words  or  terms  and  their  relations  which  make  it  so 
difficult  for  us  moderns  to  comprehend  them,  and  which 
have  led  many  to  think  that  the  conclusions  the  school- 
men reached  with  such  painstaking  ingenuity  and  learn- 
ing were,  after  all,  of  no  practical  value.  The  difficulty 
was,  as  we  can  see  clearly  now,  in  attributing  an  exag- 
gerated or  false  value  to  the  dialectical  method  as  an  in- 
strument for  reaching  truth.  The  practice  was  to  place 
all  questions,  great  and  small,  in  those  days,  in  the  cru- 
cible of  logic  to  test  their  meaning,  and  to  ascertain 
whether  their  elements  could  be  formed  into  a  proper 
syllogism.  If  the  process  seems  at  first  only  a  method 
of  constructing  ingenious  puzzles,  we  are  to  remember 
that  the  greatest  problems  of  human  life  were  solved, 
as  well  as  a  knowledge  of  the  mysteries  of  the  Divine 

government  reached,  to  the  satisfaction  of  some  of  the 

32 


374  MEDIEVAL   HISTORY. 

acutest  intellects  the  world  has  ever  known,  by  this 
method  of  accurately  defining  the  terms  in  which,  by 
the  rules  of  logic,  they  were  supposed  to  be  properly 
expressed,  and  then  deducing  the  relations  between  them 
growing  out  of  terms  so  defined. 

In  pursuing  this  method  of  ascertaining  the  meaning 
of  words  or  terms  and  their  relations,  the  schoolmen  soon 
discovered  that  words  were  things;  and  shortly  after- 
wards arose  the  celebrated  controversy  about  "univer- 
sal," which  was  the  technical  name  given  to  certain  words 
expressing  general  ideas.  The  question  was  whether 
the  word  which  denoted  a  general  idea  or  a  "  universal" 
presented  a  real  object  to  the  mind,  a  true  subsisting 
entity  outside  the  mere  abstract  conception  of  it  by  the 
intellect.  For  instance,  what  does  the  word  "  humanity" 
in  its  logical  sense  mean  ?  Is  it  a  thing  really  and  ob- 
jectively existing,  or  is  it  a  mere  word  to  mark  our  gen- 
eral conception  of  the  human  race?  Those  who  believed 
that  universals  or  general  ideas  were  objective  realities 
were  called  Realists,  while  those  who  denied  the  real 
existence  of  universals,  and  who  asserted  that  nothing 
actually  is  but  the  individual,  that  of  which  the  senses 
take  cognizance,  were  called  Nominalists.  The  quarrel 
between  these  parties  lasted  until  the  time  of  the  Re- 
naissance, when  the  fame  of  Plato,  who  was  the  first 
Realist,  superseded  that  of  Aristotle,  the  great  master 
of  the  Nominalist  schoolmen.  Into  the  merits  of  the 
controversy  I  cannot  pretend  to  enter.  It  is  very  clear, 
however,  that  it  was  regarded  by  the  parties  as  something 


ARISTOTLE  AND    THE  SCHOOLMEN.      375 

much  more  serious  than  a  quarrel  about  mere  words. 
The  Church  watched  its  progress  with  the  greatest  jeal- 
ousy, fearing  the  rationalism  of  such  men  as  Erigena, 
Roscelin,  and  Abelard.  The  gravest  questions  of  the- 
ology, as  well  as  those  which  seem  to  us  most  fanciful 
and  trivial,  became  involved  in  the  debate.  The  school- 
men, with  their  peculiar  logic,  did  not  hesitate  even 
to  explore  the  nature  of  the  Trinity.  Such  was  the 
acrimony  of  the  rival  parties  in  this  logical  conflict  that 
the  theology  of  the  time  seems  to  have  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  contentious  disputants,  and  its  dogmas  became 
an  occasion  of  strife  instead  of  objects  of  faith. 

Aristotle  ruled  paramount  in  these  controversies,  and 
under  his  supposed  authority  the  schoolmen  tested  the 
strength  of  their  philosophy  by  its  power  to  explain 
the  true  character  of  universals, — in  other  words,  to 
solve  that  question  which  in  one  form  or  another  is  to 
be  found  at  the  basis  of  all  metaphysical  speculation, 
ancient  and  modern, — viz.,  whether  our  conceptions  of 
things  are  merely  the  result  of  combinations  in  our 
own  minds,  or  whether  they  inhere  in  the  nature  of  the 
objects  presented  to  our  senses.  To  work  out  the 
refined  and  subtile  distinctions  involved  in  the  logical 
method  was  not  only  the  constant  and  most  cherished 
occupation  for  ages  of  the  best-trained  intellects,  but, 
what  perhaps  was  even  more  remarkable,  the  young 
men  who  flocked,  literally  by  tens  of  thousands,  to 
the  universities,  not  merely  of  Paris  and  of  Oxford, 
but  everywhere  throughout  Europe  where  learning  was 


376  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

taught,  came  to  listen  to  lectures  and  to  hear  disputa- 
tions upon  these  abstruse  subjects  by  men  whose  fame 
was  great  because  they  were  great  schoolmen.  The 
enthusiasm  of  the  young  men  of  that  time  for  this 
scholastic  philosophy  it  is  not  easy  to  explain ;  and  I 
am  sure  it  would  be  difficult  to  imitate  it  now,  even  had 
we  Scotus  Erigena,  Roscelin,  and  Abelard  on  the  one 
side  denying  the  reality  of  "  universals,"  and  Anselm 
and  St.  Bernard  on  the  other  affirming  it. 

This  enthusiasm,  and  the  multitudes  who  were  moved 
by  it,  became  the  immediate  cause  of  the  founding  of 
modern  universities.  Of  these,  the  University  of  Paris 
and  that  of  Bologna  were  the  oldest.  The  first  became 
for  many  centuries  so  celebrated  as  a  school  of  theology 
that  it  was  known  as  the  first  school  of  the  Church  in 
Europe,  while  that  at  Bologna  was  equally  distinguished 
as  a  place  for  the  study  of  the  Roman  law.  Towards 
the  close  of  the  twelfth  century  the  University  of  Paris 
was  fully  organized  by  the  establishment  of  the  four 
faculties  of  arts  or  philosophy,  theology,  the  canon 
law,  and  medicine.  The  king,  Philip  Augustus,  in 
the  year  1200  (and  his  example  was  followed  by  his 
successors),  granted  the  university  exemption  from  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  ordinary  tribunals  and  from  taxa- 
tion, while  the  Pope,  Nicholas  IV.,  gave  full  authority 
to  its  professors  to  teach  and  manage  schools  throughout 
Christendom  and  to  assume  the  title  of  doctors.  The 
number  of  the  students  is  said  to  have  been  at  one  time 
equal  to  that  of  the  citizens,  and  to  have  reached  during 


UNIVERSITY  ORGANIZATION.  377 

the  fifteenth  century  thirty  thousand.  This  vast  number 
of  students  made  it  necessary  that  for  the  purposes  of 
instruction  and  discipline  there  should  be  a  system  of 
organization,  and  that  adopted  was  the  division  of  the 
students  and  professors  into  nations,  in  which  their  posi- 
tion depended  upon  the  country  from  which  they  came, 
and  not  upon  the  faculty  whose  instructions  they  at- 
tended. Each  nation  formed  a  distinct  body,  composed 
of  the  professors  and  students  from  a  particular  district, 
and  the  procurator  or  head  of  the  nation  was  elected 
by  this  body.  All  the  nations  united  in  the  election  of 
the  head  or  rector  of  the  university,  thus  establishing 
that  fundamental  principle  in  university  government 
that  its  president  should  be  chosen  by  those  who  have 
the  best  opportunity  of  knowing  the  qualifications  of 
the  person  proposed,  and  his  fitness  for  performing  the 
duties  devolving  upon  him.  I  call  this  principle  a 
fundamental  one,  for  it  prevails  to  this  day  throughout 
Europe,  and  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  it  is  so  reason- 
able in  itself,  and  has  been  so  approved  by  universal 
experience,  that  it  remains  the  only  method  of  gov- 
erning human  beings  which  has  been  unchanged  by 
all  the  changes  of  the  last  seven  hundred  years. 

The  system  was,  as  may  be  inferred,  one  of  training  and 
mental  discipline  rather  than  one  designed  to  impart  a 
knowledge  of  facts.  The  instruction  given  in  the  faculty 
of  arts,  and  later  in  that  of  theology, — the  principal  fac- 
ulties, as  I  have  said,  of  the  University  of  Paris, — com- 
prised those  subjects  contained  in  what  were  technically 

32* 


378  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

called  the  trivium  and  the  quadrivium,  the  first  or  ele- 
mentary course  embracing  grammar,  logic,  and  rhetoric, 
the  second  or  advance  course  music,  arithmetic,  geome- 
try, and  astronomy.  The  number  seven  had  a  mystical 
significance  in  the  Middle  Age.  There  were  seven  car- 
dinal virtues,  seven  deadly  sins,  seven  sacraments,  etc. ; 
and  perhaps  for  this  reason  there  were  said  to  be  seven 
fundamental  branches  of  human  knowledge. 

But  probably  nothing  was  very  thoroughly  taught, 
according  to  our  modern  notions,  save  the  scholastic 
philosophy,  especially  in  its  application  to  theology. 
The  method  of  teaching  did  not  differ  at  the  University 
of  Paris  from  that  which  had  been  employed  by  cele- 
brated private  teachers  previous  to  its  establishment.  It 
is  not  easy  to  account  for  the  vast  multitude  of  stu- 
dents who  crowded  around  celebrated  schoolmen  who 
expounded  their  system,  whether  in  the  university,  or, 
as  in  the  case  of  Abelard,  in  a  secluded  place  in  the 
country,  whither  he  had  retired,  hoping — as  it  proved, 
in  vain — that  his  lectures  would  be  less  crowded  by  en- 
thusiastic pupils.  It  is  certainly  a  strange  spectacle  of 
the  life  of  the  Middle  Age  to  find  its  intense  intellectual 
life  consumed  by  a  violent  quarrel  about  the  reality  of 
"universals"  and  to  find  the  educated  men  of  the  time, 
not  only  at  Paris  but  at  the  centres  of  instruction  every- 
where throughout  Europe,  disputing  with  each  other,  as 
Realists  and  Nominalists,  with  as  much  mutual  bitterness 
and  hate  as  those  who  were  fighting  in  another  sphere 
under  the  party  names  of  Guelph  and  Ghibeline. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  PARIS.  379 

In  the  absence  of  printed  books  the  instruction  given 
by  these  teachers  was  necessarily  oral.  The  students  in 
these  universities  had  little  other  aid  than  their  note- 
books to  enable  them  to  prepare  for  their  examination 
for  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts,  the  principal  value  of 
which  consisted  in  the  license  to  teach  which  accom- 
panied it.  The  University  of  Paris  was  a  power  of  the 
first  magnitude  throughout  Europe  during  the  Middle 
Age.  In  France  it  was  the  counsellor  of  her  kings  in 
their  many  disputes  with  the  Popes,  and  its  arbitrament 
was  sought  and  its  decision  regarded  as  final  in  all  ques- 
tions of  conflict  between  the  Church  and  the  State. 
Philippe  le  Bel  consulted  it  on  the  question  of  jurisdiction 
between  himself  and  the  Pope;  and  Charles  V.,  with  a 
just  estimate  of  the  glory  which  this  renowned  establish- 
ment had  brought  to  his  throne,  gave  it  the  title  of  fille 
ainfa  des  rois  de  France,  and  rank  and  precedence  in  the 
kingdom  immediately  after  the  princes  of  the  blood. 
The  university  was  regarded  as  the  stronghold  of  ortho- 
doxy ;  but  it  did  not  hesitate  to  speak  in  the  tone  of 
authority  to  Benedict  XIII.  when  he  was  elected  Pope, 
urging  upon  him  the  necessity  of  reform  in  the  Church. 
In  the  Council  of  Constance,  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
where  a  most  honest  eifort  was  made  to  bring  about  a 
reform  of  the  Church  by  means  within  itself,  the  leading 
spirit  was  Gerson,  who  was  the  president  of  the  Council, 
being  at  the  same  time  delegate  of  the  University  of 
Paris  and  ambassador  of  the  King  of  France.  When 
we  hear  the  Middle  Age  spoken  of  as  the  Dark  Ages,  as 


380  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  period  of  arbitrary  and  unchecked  force,  never  let 
us  forget  that  at  no  epoch  in  the  world's  history,  ancient 
or  modern,  did  scholars  more  worthily  fill  their  true 
position  as  the  guides  of  the  world,  and  never  has  their 
authority  been  more  generally  recognized  or  more  readily 
obeyed  in  all  that  concerns  the  highest  interests  of  man- 
kind, than  in  these  self-same  Dark  Ages,  as  they  are 
called. 

While  philosophy  and  theology  were  thus  occupying 
the  attention  of  the  acutest  intellects  of  Europe  at  Paris 
and  at  the  other  universities  in  France  and  in  England, 
another  subject,  a  knowledge  of  which  was  to  have  a 
profound  influence  upon  the  destinies  of  Europe,  was 
being  taught  at  Bologna  in  Italy,  and  that  was  the 
Roman  civil  law.  The  foundation  of  the  celebrated 
university  at  that  place  is  said  to  have  been  coeval  with 
that  at  Paris.  The  general  organization  in  both  institu- 
tions was  the  same,  but  (as  it  often  happened),  while  Paris 
became  the  headquarters  of  the  schoolmen,  Bologna  was 
the  resort  of  students  of  the  civil  law,  or  civilians  as 
they  were  called.  The  revival  of  this  study  is  only 
another  of  the  countless  proofs  we  meet  with  of  the 
permanent  influence  of  the  Roman  civilization.  As  the 
Roman  law,  known  to  the  students  of  the  Middle  Age 
only  as  embodied  in  the  Pandects  and  in  the  Code  of 
Justinian,  was  supposed  to  be  the  instrument  which  had 
been  actually  used  for  governing  the  world  by  a  system 
of  Imperial  despotism,  the  German  Emperors  when 
they  sought  to  make  themselves  in  their  heterogeneous 


STUD  Y  OF  CIVIL  AND    CANON  LA  W.      381 

dominions  successors  to  the  Imperial  Caesars  desired  to 
avail  themselves  of  the  same  method  of  administration 
to  produce  the  same  results.  At  the  same  time  and  at 
the  same  place  grew  up  a  disposition  to  stud)7  the  new 
science  called  the  Canon  law,  which  was  a  system  of 
Church  law  founded  upon  the  decrees  of  Councils  and 
of  Popes,  and  forming  the  basis  for  its  orderly  adminis- 
tration. To  Bologna,  as  to  Paris,  students  flocked  in 
crowds.  In  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century  the 
number  was  over  thirteen  thousand.  Whether  they  all 
became  civil  or  canon  lawyers  I  am  unable  to  tell.  The 
vast  attendance  of  students  in  the  different  departments 
of  these  universities  presents,  too,  a  problem  in  medieval 
life  which  I  have  never  been  able  satisfactorily  to  solve. 
How  they  all  managed  to  spend  the  five  or  six  years  in 
residence  which  were  required  before  they  presented 
themselves  for  examination  for  a  degree,  what  was  the 
nature  of  that  examination,  whence  the  students  came, 
and  where  they  went  after  being  graduated,  are  all  ques- 
tions which  are  difficult  to  answer. 

We  are  impressed,  upon  a  survey  of  mediaeval  educa- 
tion, with  the  absence  in  it  of  any  instruction  in  either 
natural  or  applied  science.  We  measure  in  these  days 
our  civilization  so  entirely  by  our  knowledge  of  the 
forces  of  nature  and  our  control  over  them  for  our  own 
purposes,  that  we  are  naturally  inclined  to  think  that 
scholars  must  have  been  really  very  ignorant  in  those 
ages.  But  we  must  remember  that  the  leaders  of  the 
age  are  to  be  measured  by  a  different  standard,  when 


382  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  object  of  education  was  mental  training,  and  not  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge.  It  is  most  true  that  revela- 
tion and  authority  were  the  bases  of  all  speculations  in 
the  Middle  Age,  as  scepticism  and  individualism  are 
those  of  inquiries  which  have  proved  so  fruitful  in  re- 
sults in  modern  times.  The  question  now  is  not  which 
is  the  best  or  the  truest  system  (and  no  one  system  of 
education  can  be  the  best  for  all  times),  but  why  such 
a  one  as  I  have  described  was  necessarily  the  outcome 
of  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  life  of  the  Middle 
Age. 

There  is  a  link  which  binds  the  education  of  that  age 
to  that  which  has  become  the  popular  form  in  our  own 
day,  just  as  there  are  links  which  connect  such  institu- 
tions as  feudalism  and  the  medieval  Church  with  our 
modern  civilization.  If  education  now  means  chiefly 
the  acquisition  of  a  knowledge  of  facts,  we  may  find  in 
the  gradual  introduction  of  the  Arabian  philosophy  and 
Arabian  science,  especially  in  the  methods  of  studying 
the  science  of  medicine  in  the  mediaeval  universities,  illus- 
trations that  our  own  methods  are  not  wholly  original. 
I  speak  of  Arabian  science ;  but  it  should  be  more  prop- 
erly called  Greek  science  as  studied  and  applied  by 
Arabian  philosophers.  In  the  early  days  of  Moham- 
medanism in  Syria,  all  the  works  of  Aristotle  (not 
merely  his  Logic),  as  well  as  the  treatises  on  medicine 
of  Hippocrates  and  Galen,  and  of  the  Alexandrian  as- 
tronomers, were  accessible  to  the  learned  men  among 
the  Arabian  conquerors,  and  were  made  the  subject  of 


STUDY  OF  MEDICINE.  383 

profound  study.  A  rational  system  of  medicine  and 
astronomy  derived  from  the  Greeks  came  thus  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  Saracens,  and  was  carried  by  them 
wherever  the  conquering  arms  of  the  Prophet  led  them. 
In  this  way  the  extraordinary  development  of  the  ma- 
terial civilization  of  the  Arabs  in  Spain  during  their 
ascendency  there  is  accounted  for.  It  was  impossible  to 
hide  the  light  of  science  such  as  the  Arabs  taught  in 
Spain,  and  it  soon  began  to  shine  in  the  dark  places  of 
Christian  Europe.  As  in  Syria  of  old,  so  in  France  and 
in  other  parts  of  Christendom  philosophy  stole  in  under 
the  protection  of  medicine.  "  It  was,"  says  a  great  writer, 
"as  physicians  that  the  famous  Arabian  philosophers, 
as  well  as  some  Jews,  acquired  great  fame  and  authority. 
There  is  not  among  them  a  philosopher  who  had  not 
some  connection  with  medicine,  nor  a  physician  who  had 
not  some  connection  with  philosophy.  The  translators 
of  the  most  famous  philosophers,  Averroes  and  Avicenna, 
were  physicians.  Metaphysics  only  followed  in  the  train 
of  physical  science."  The  faculty  of  medicine  in  the  uni- 
versities, which  had  hitherto  been  somewhat  neglected  in 
Western  Europe,  became  under  the  teaching  of  the  Ara- 
bian doctrines  one  of  the  most  important  of  the  depart- 
ments of  instruction,  and  that  at  Montpellier  and  the 
school  at  Salerno  were  as  crowded  with  medical  students 
as  the  University  of  Paris  with  schoolmen,  or  that  of 
Bologna  with  civilians  or  canonists.  The  old  scholastic 
philosophy  could  not  escape  the  contagion  of  the  methods 
of  physical  investigation  used  in  the  study  of  medicine. 


384  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

Gradually  the  influence  of  these  methods  made  itself 
felt  in  the  universities,  and,  when  it  became  apparent,  the 
alarm  of  the  orthodox  and  of  the  Church  authorities  led 
them  in  vain  so  to  order  the  teaching  of  the  professors 
that  the  very  timid  doubts  which  had  been  expressed 
in  some  quarters  concerning  the  claims  of  the  Church 
should  be  forever  silenced.  An  attempt  was  made  of 
the  most  strenuous  kind  to  place  the  whole  instruction 
in  the  University  of  Paris  in  the  hands  of  the  Domin- 
icans and  Franciscans,  hoping  thereby  that  this  old 
stronghold  of  orthodoxy  should  be  preserved  to  the 
Church.  This  attempt  failed ;  but  these  orders  excluded 
from  the  universities  were  not  idle  as  champions  of  the 
faith.  They  produced  the  five  great  modern  schoolmen 
whose  special  work  it  was  to  do  what  it  has  been  often 
erroneously  said  was  the  duty  of  all, — viz.,  to  reconcile 
revelation  and  the  authority  of  the  Church  with  human 
reason  by  Aristotelian  methods  more  fully  understood. 

Scholasticism  at  the  last,  however,  from  the  prodigious 
mental  activity  which  it  kept  up,  became  a  tacit  universal 
insurrection  against  authority :  it  was  the  swelling  of 
the  ocean  before  the  storm.  It  began  to  assign  bounds 
to  that  which  had  been  the  universal  all-embracing  do- 
main of  theology.  It  was  a  sign  of  a  great  awakening 
of  the  human  mind  when  theologians  thought  it  both 
their  duty  and  their  privilege  to  philosophize.  There 
was  a  vast  waste  of  intellectual  labor,  but  still  it  was 
intellectual  labor,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  it  was  not,  in  the 
end,  unfruitful. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

THE  LABORING  CLASSES  IN  THE   MIDDLE   AGE. 

THERE  is  perhaps  no  more  striking  contrast  between 
modern  life  and  the  life  of  antiquity  and  of  the  Middle 
Age  than  that  presented  by  the  different  social  position 
and  influence  of  those  engaged  in  trade,  and  especially 
in  the  industrial  and  mechanic  arts,  in  the  two  epochs. 
At  the  present  day,  and  especially  in  this  country,  the 
successful  man  of  business  is  king,  ruling  our  society 
in  nearly  all  its  departments  with  an  authority  as  un- 
challenged, and  often  as  arbitrary,  as  that  of  the  most 
despotic  sovereign  who  ever  sat  on  a  throne.  With 
the  natural  disposition  of  mankind  to  worship  success, 
those  who  become  rich  in  this  way  are  looked  upon  as 
objects  of  imitation  and  envy.  Not  only  so,  but  the 
methods  which  they  have  adopted  in  becoming  rich  are 
considered  appropriate  for  the  attainment  of  very  dif- 
ferent ends  in  life  from  mere  money-getting.  Self-made 
men,  as  they  are  called, — that  is,  men  without  any  liberal 
training,  who  have  thus  become  rich  by  their  own  exer- 
tions,— are  not  only  the  arbiters  of  trade  and  leaders  in 
social  influence,  but  they  are  too  often  the  guides  in  the 
special  development  of  religion,  of  politics,  of  education, 

and  of  benevolence,  and,  in  short,  determine  not  merely 

33  385 


386  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  ideal  to  which  society  should  aspire,  but  the  methods 
by  which  it  should  be  reached. 

It  may  not  at  once  occur  to  many  that  this  extraordi- 
nary all-pervading  power  of  wealth,  and  the  social  con- 
sideration which  it  gives,  are  among  the  most  modern 
developments  of  modern  times.  There  were,  of  course, 
rich  men  who  were  self-made  both  in  antiquity  and  in 
the  Middle  Age ;  but  men  grown  rich  by  trade  do  not 
seem  to  have  been  held  in  honor  in  either  epoch.  Their 
want  of  social  consideration  and  influence  is  abundantly 
clear  from  the  works  of  the  great  writers  of  the  time. 
Cicero,  for  instance,  in  writing  to  his  son,  tells  him  that 
those  who  gained  their  livelihood  by  mercantile  pursuits, 
as  well  as  those  who  followed  the  mechanic  arts,  were 
incapa!51e  of  any  noble  sentiment;  while  Seneca,  who 
was  one  of  the  two  sages  of  antiquity  who,  according  to 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  needed  only  baptism  to  procure 
them  admission  to  the  Christian's  heaven,  speaks  of  the 
useful  arts  of  life  as  the  fitting  occupation  only  of  slaves. 
Such  is  the  uniform  testimony  of  writers  who  have  de- 
scribed the  condition  of  Europe  down  to  a  period  as  late 
as  that  of  the  Reformation,  and  even  later. 

In  this  view  of  life,  so  strange  to  us,  there  was  more 
reason  than  appears  on  the  surface.  The  source  of  the 
contempt  felt  until  modern  times  for  those  whose  lives 
were  passed  in  trade  or  in  industrial  labor,  as  very 
plainly  appears,  was  this,  that  until  a  period  compara- 
tively recent  these  pursuits  were  entirely  confined  to 
slaves  or  to  a  servile  class.  The  emancipation  of  labor, 


LABOR  IN  ANTIQUITY.  387 

then,  and  its  elevation  to  its  condition  in  our  time,  when 
we  hear  so  much  of  its  dignity,  was  the  emancipation  of 
those  who  labored  from  slavery,  and  from  that  taint 
which  in  public  opinion  in  Europe  has  always  affected 
everything  connected  with  slave  labor.  The  history  of 
the  laboring  classes  in  Europe  is  the  history  of  the 
progress  of  the  larger  portion  of  the  population  from 
slavery  to  freedom.  I  have  already  given  a  sketch  of 
the  history  of  those  who,  it  was  said,  served  the  State 
by  their  swords,  and  of  those  who  served  it  by  their 
prayers :  I  now  propose  to  say  something  about  the 
history  of  the  remaining  class,  those  who  preserved  it 
by  their  labor,  a  subject  of  far  greater  dramatic  interest, 
in  my  opinion,  than  the  others. 

We  must  go  to  the  history  of  Rome  for  a  knowledge 
of  the  beginnings  of  the  laboring  class  in  Europe,  just 
as  we  go  there  as  to  the  source  from  which  we  must 
derive  our  information  concerning  the  early  history  of 
the  noble  and  the  priestly  classes  which  ruled  in  the 
mediaeval  time. 

The  slight  esteem  in  which  labor  and  the  useful  arts 
were  held  in  the  early  history  of  the  republic  was  due 
perhaps  originally  in  some  measure  to  the  few  wants  of 
the  people  as  compared  with  those  of  later  times.  While 
Rome  was  struggling  not  for  supremacy  but  for  exist- 
ence, she  regarded  as  desirable  only  those  things  which 
made  good  soldiers.  She  encouraged  agriculture  because 
it  gave  her  strong  recruits  for  her  armies  and  fed  them ; 
but  the  artisan  lived  poor  and  despised  in  his  workshop, 


S38  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

with  no  prospect  of  bettering  his  condition.  Like  all 
classes  in  Rome,  the  workmen  were  enrolled  in  special  or- 
ganizations called  collegia)  or  trade  corporations.  Their 
members  were  few,  and  were  made  up  of  those  engaged  in 
the  commonest  handicrafts,  such  as  would  be  required  by 
a  people  with  the  simplest  wants.  All  this  was  changed 
when  the  Roman  armies  carried  their  conquests  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  Italy.  Sicily,  Spain,  Africa,  and 
Greece  were  pillaged,  after  the  manner  of  ancient  war- 
fare, of  their  richest  treasures  for  the  benefit  of  the  Ro- 
man republic,  the  population  of  the  city,  and  its  armies. 
At  once  the  ancient  simplicity  of  habits  was  exchanged 
for  the  wildest  extravagance  and  luxury.  A  very  large 
portion  of  the  booty  of  these  wars  consisted  of  vast  num- 
bers of  slaves,  many  of  whom,  both  male  and  female, 
especially  those  who  were  brought  from  Greece  and 
Syria,  were  not  only  persons  whom  we  should  now  call  of 
liberal  education,  but  many  of  whom  also  were  the  most 
skilled  artificers  then  known  to  the  world  in  all  that 
ministers  to  a  taste  for  refinement,  culture,  and  luxury. 
The  work  of  these  slaves  soon  made  Rome  a  very  rich 
city ;  but  it  did  not,  as  may  be  supposed,  elevate  the  con- 
dition of  the  native  free  Roman  workman,  whose  labor 
was  brought  into  competition  with  that  of  the  slaves 
who  had  been  so  highly  trained.  So  hopeless,  indeed, 
did  the  struggle  become  that  it  seems  to  have  been 
almost  wholly  abandoned;  and  it  may  be  said  here 
that  one  great  cause  of  the  final  decay  of  the  Roman 
power  was  the  constant  use  of  slaves  in  increasing 


SLAVES  IN  ROME.  389 

numbers  to  the  exclusion  of  free  laborers  in  every 
kind  of  skilled  labor.  This  practice  turned  the  poorer 
Roman  citizens  into  a  hungry  mob,  crying  panem  et 
tircenses,  and  later  it  destroyed  agriculture  in  Italy,  and 
with  it  the  free  population  it  nourished,  giving  up  the 
soil  to  sheep  pastures,  which  could  be  managed  more 
profitably,  because  more  cheaply,  by  slaves  than  by  free- 
men. Latif undid  perdidere  Italiam,  is  the  profoundest 
reflection  of  Pliny  the  Elder;  and  these  three  words, 
according  to  him,  contain  the  secret  of  the  history  of 
the  downfall  of  the  Empire. 

The  slaves,  in  vast  and  increasing  numbers,  were  em- 
ployed in  three  different  ways  at  Rome.  They  were 
occupied  either  in  the  personal  service  of  their  masters, 
manufacturing  within  the  house  what  was  needed  for 
its  use  and  adornment,  or  they  were  let  out  to  others 
for  similar  purposes,  or  they  became  gladiators  in  the 
cruel  amusements  of  the  amphitheatre.  Their  skill  in 
all  the  mechanic  arts  had  a  deplorable  influence  upon 
the  condition  of  the  free  laborers,  who  became,  owing  to 
the  impossibility  of  competing  with  the  servile  labor, 
the  most  troublesome  and  seditious  class  throughout  the 
Empire.  Their  collegia)  which  had  been  originally  in- 
tended for  their  protection,  were  suppressed  as  dangerous 
to  the  State  during  the  great  civil  and  social  wars.  They 
were  abolished  because  they  had  then  become  asylums 
for  the  discontented ;  and  this  policy  was  kept  up  for 
Jhe  same  reasons,  and  from  the  same  fear,  by  the  Em- 
perors for  nearly  a  century.  Later,  the  utter  prostration 

33* 


390  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

of  industry  made  it  necessary  to  reorganize  these  cor- 
porations, with  the  hope  of  finding  employment  for  the 
vast  mass  of  proletarii  whom  the  State,  from  motives 
of  safety  if  not  of  humanity,  was  called  upon  to  pro- 
vide for. 

In  the  third  century,  the  conquests  ceasing,  the  num- 
ber of  slaves  grew  less;  the  larger  portion  of  the  working 
class,  however,  were,  although  nominally  free,  the  chil- 
dren of  slaves  or  of  freedmen ;  and  the  collegia,  which 
were  originally  designed  to  protect  their  industry  by 
giving  them  a  monopoly,  begame  a  powerful  means 
in  the  hands  of  the  government  for  controlling  them. 
This  class,  even  when  its  labor  was  most  necessary,  was 
still  without  social  position  or  influence  in  the  Empire. 
It  was  composed  chiefly  of  three  groups,  all,  of  course, 
free,  or  at  least  not  slaves :  1st,  those  who  worked  in  the 
public  service  in  the  construction  of  roads  and  buildings, 
and  in  preparing  the  material  necessary  for  the  equip- 
ment of  the  army ;  2d,  those  who  cultivated  the  public 
lands  of  the  Empire  in  order  to  provide  the  food  with 
which  the  government  undertook  to  supply  the  mob  of 
Rome,  the  specially  dangerous  class  of  the  Empire  at 
that  time;  and,  3d,  those  who  worked  at  any  trade 
which  they  preferred. 

The  constitution  of  these  collegia  interests  us  specially 
because  they  were  the  model  upon  which  the  jurandes 
and  gildes  of  later  times  were  formed.  The  privileges 
which  were  attached  to  them  do  not  seem  to  have  com- 
pensated for  the  obligations  which  were  forced  upon 


ORGANIZATION  OF  LABOR.  391 

their  members.  They  had  the  monopoly  of  production, 
each  iii  the  work  of  its  own  particular  collegium;  they 
were,  at  least  for  a  long  time,  exempt  from  the  military 
service  of  the  State,  as  well  as  from  being  forced  to  as- 
sume the  doubtful  and  costly  honors  of  the  curia ;  but 
such  exemptions  were  considered  as  marks  of  ignominy, 
and  not  as  privileges  conferred.  There  was  among  these 
workmen  none  of  that  individual  liberty  which,  begetting 
rivalry  and  enterprise,  we  regard,  in  modern  times  at 
least,  as  the  strongest  incentive  to  skill  in  one's  calling. 

In  the  Roman  Empire  every  one  was  bound,  as  if  by 
a  chain,  to  the  special  work  in  which  he  was  engaged. 
The  colonist  was  tied  to  the  land,  the  public  officer  to 
his  charge,  the  curicdis  to  his  municipium,  the  merchant 
to  his  shop,  and  the  workman  to  his  collegium.  If  there 
was  any  liberty  of  action,  it  belonged  not  to  the  indi- 
vidual, but  to  the  corporation  of  which  he  formed  part, 
which  both  in  law  and  in  fact  absorbed  the  workman. 

This  method  of  organizing  labor,  which  became  at  last 
only  an  ingenious  system  of  keeping  a  troublesome  ele- 
ment of  the  population  in  due  order  and  subordination, 
was  one  of  the  characteristic  peculiarities  of  the  Roman 
administration,  and  it  was  swept  away  by  the  invasions. 
Industry  upon  any  large  scale  was,  of  course,  destroyed 
by  this  terrible  calamity,  and  there  was  nowhere  any 
recuperative  power :  the  individual  had  long  before  per- 
ished in  the  embraces  of  the  State.  One  of  the  first 
results  of  the  invasions,  so  far  as  the  condition  of  the 
laborer  was  concerned,  was  to  bring  him  back  again  into 


392  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

that  state  of  slavery  from  which  he  had  been  at  least 
measurably  emancipated  by  the  system  of  the  Roman 
collegia.  The  towns  in  Gaul  through  which  the  in- 
vaders passed  were  filled  with  workmen,  and  there  were 
among  them  many,  no  doubt,  nominally  freemen ;  but 
the  invaders  took  little  heed  of  the  free  or  the  enslaved 
condition  of  the  working  class,  and  made  them  all,  indis- 
criminately, captives, — prisoners  of  war, — and  therefore 
they  all  became  slaves.  The  conquerors  soon  became 
embarrassed  by  the  number  of  their  captives,  and  even 
by  their  skill  in  handicraft ;  for  the  Teutonic  invaders 
had  few  of  the  wants  which  the  luxurious  and  civilized 
Romans  had  felt  when  they  had  forced  their  captured 
slaves  to  minister  to  them.  Thus  not  only  in  Gaul, 
but  wherever  Roman  civilization  had  taken  root,  these 
slaves  were  very  much  in  the  way,  for  in  the  new  life 
which  the  Teutonic  invasion  introduced  there  seemed  no 
place  for  them.  Hence  at  no  period  of  history  has  there 
been  greater  suffering  on  the  part  of  an  industrious  and 
intelligent  population  of  skilled  laborers  than  when  it 
was  found  that,  as  there  was  no  longer  any  demand  for 
their  skill,  they  must  engage  in  the  rudest  and  most 
unaccustomed  labor  as  slaves  under  barbarous  task- 
masters. 

So  much  for  the  trade  organizations  in  the  cities  of  the 
Empire.  The  position  of  the  rural  or  agricultural  laborer 
was  somewhat  different.  He  was  called  colonus.  Men  of 
this  class  were  not  slaves ;  in  this  sense,  at  least,  that  they 
were  not  regarded  by  the  law  as  mere  chattels.  They 


SLAVES  BECOME  BOND-LABORERS.       393 

might  serve  in  the  army,  and  contract  a  lawful  marriage ; 
and  a  slave  could  do  neither.  But  they  were  bound  to 
the  estate  of  the  proprietor  on  which  they  lived,  adso'ipti 
glebce;  they  were  subject  to  corporal  punishment,  and  had 
no  redress  at  law  for  the  hard  treatment  of  their  mas- 
ters; but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  owner  could  not  sepa- 
rate them  from  the  domain  and  sell  them,  and  their 
tenure  was  secure  on  the  payment  of  a  fixed  rent.  At 
the  epoch  of  the  invasions,  then,  the  mass  of  the  rural 
population  throughout  the  Empire  were  bond-laborers, 
not  slaves  in  the  strict  legal  sense.  Let  us  mark  the 
transition  from  the  Roman  colonus  to  the  Teutonic  serf 
or  villein ;  for  the  last  relation  grew  out  of  the  first  as  a 
consequence  of  the  invasions. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Roman  laborer  had,  it  is  true, 
been  in  dependence  upon  the  owner  of  the  soil  and  at- 
tached thereto,  but  he  was  also  the  subject  of  a  central 
general  government  whose  laws  he  was  bound  to  obey. 
But  among  all  nations  of  German  blood,  power  origi- 
nally rested  upon  two  foundations :  first,  upon  the  pos- 
session of  land ;  and,  secondly,  upon  distinction  in  rank. 
As  a  result  of  the  invasions,  the  central  general  govern- 
ment being  destroyed,  the  proprietor  of  the  land  became 
the  sovereign  of  all  those  who  dwelt  upon  it.  Sovereignty 
and  property,  therefore,  were  vested  in  the  same  hands, 
and  the  laborer  had  no  guarantee  against  oppression  in 
the  provisions  of  a  State  law  which  was  equally  binding 
upon  him  and  his  master.  This  was  the  first  step  made 
in  the  change  of  the  condition  of  the  bond-laborer  to 


394  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

that  of  the  Middle  Age  serf.  But  it  was  precisely  this 
arbitrary  and  capricious  despotism,  which  was  a  charac- 
teristic feature  of  the  feudal  system,  which  rendered  that 
system  so  oppressive  to  the  laboring  man  of  the  mediaeval 
period. 

It  is  important  to  observe  that  in  those  days  of  oppres- 
sion the  complaints  of  the  patient  workmen  were  directed 
not  so  much  against  the  exactions  of  the  lords,  excessive 
as  they  were,  as  against  the  uncertain  and  capricious 
character  of  those  demands ;  in  other  words,  to  the  ab- 
sence of  contracts  which  would  clearly  settle  their  mutual 
relations.  The  struggle  between  the  laboring  class,  both 
in  town  and  in  country,  against  the  noble  class,  after  the 
lands  had  been  divided  among  them,  and  during  the 
whole  continuance  of  the  feudal  system,  was  a  struggle 
therefore  not  so  much  to  diminish  the  amount  of  service 
rendered  the  lords  as  to  settle  clearly  the  nature  of  that 
service  and  to  make  it  fixed  and  certain.  The  abolition 
of  villenage  or  serfdom  was  merely  the  substitution  of  a 
contract  for  fixed  service  for  the  arbitrary  and  capricious 
demands  of  the  feudal  superior ;  and  the  freedom  of  the 
towns  or  communes,  as  it  was  called,  was  not  a  freedom 
from  paying  taxes  to  the  lord,  but  freedom  from  being 
pillaged  at  will  by  him, — a  privilege  purchased,  as  we 
have  seen,  by  the  payment  of  a  certain  sum  of  money 
mutually  agreed  upon.  As  serfdom  had  been  substituted 
for  the  colonatus,  contracts  between  the  lord  and  his  vas- 
sal took  the  place  of  the  services  formerly  rendered. 
The  change  in  both  cases  was  due  largely  to  economic 


INFLUENCE  OF  ECONOMIC  MOTIVES.     395 

considerations,  and  when  such  contracts  could  be  made 
and  kept,  it  is  evident  that  the  chains  of  feudal  depend- 
ence were  becoming  loosened ;  and  this  formed,  as  we 
shall  see,  the  stepping-stone  by  which  the  laboring  class 
reached  at  last,  after  the  severest  struggles,  the  condition 
of  absolute  freedom. 

Out  of  the  condition  caused  by  these  changes  grew 
that  class  of  farmers,  or  peasant  proprietors,  or  freehold- 
ing  yeomen,  as  they  have  been  differently  called  in  dif- 
ferent countries  of  Europe,  which  forms,  as  has  been 
said,  the  backbone  of  modern  society.  Observe  the  pro- 
cess by  which  all  this  was  brought  about.  It  was  due 
in  a  very  small  measure  to  the  influence  of  that  sentiment 
of  piety  and  benevolence  which  has  sometimes  taught 
men  the  injustice  of  holding  their  fellow-men  in  bond- 
age, or  even  to  the  example  of  the  Church  itself  in 
dealing  with  its  own  serfs,  but  rather  to  purely  selfish 
and  economic  considerations.  It  was  a  scheme  on  the 
part  of  the  lords  to  secure  from  their  estates  larger  and 
more  certain  revenues  than  they  had  previously  yielded, 
and  was  founded  on  the  principle  that  in  every  way,  as 
well  for  the  laborer  as  for  the  master,  free  labor  was 
more  profitable  than  slave  labor. 

These  contracts  for  fixed  rents  and  services  seem  to  have 
been  extended  gradually  to  all  rural  laborers,  whether 
technically  bond  or  free,  so  greatly  had  they  proved  to  be 
of  advantage  to  the  lords.  Thus  we  see  now  clearly  that, 
out  of  the  pure  selfishness  of  the  lords,  a  system,  which 
•was  intended  by  them  only  to  increase  their  wealth  and 


396  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

power,  in  the  end  really  became  one  out  of  which  grew 
the  first  and  the  most  permanent  characteristic  of  mod- 
ern freedom, — namely,  the  right  of  each  man  to  sell  his 
labor  at  his  own  price.  Not  only  this,  but,  in  the  uni- 
versal greed  of  the  lords  to  increase  their  wealth,  slaves 
had  been  contracted  with  on  the  same  footing  as  other 
laborers,  so  that  practically  an  equality  of  condition 
was  established  between  these  classes,  and  slavery, 
which,  in  one  form  or  another,  had  been  the  normal 
condition  of  the  larger  portion  of  the  human  race  in  all 
previous  history,  gradually  died  out  in  Western  Europe, 
simply  because  it  was  not  profitable,  but  not  before  giv- 
ing birth  to  the  modern  freeman. 

These  movements,  which  extended  over  all  that  part 
of  Europe  which  had  been  occupied  by  the  Teutonic 
invaders,  and  which  gradually,  during  several  centuries, 
were  changing  its  social  condition,  have  always  seemed 
to  me  among  the  most  striking  illustrations  in  history 
of  that  Divine  providence  which  makes  not  merely  the 
wrath  but  the  selfishness  and  wickedness  of  man  to 
praise  Him.  This  mighty  revolution,  the  results  of 
which  were,  of  course,  wholly  unexpected,  was  so  silent 
in  its  movement  that  we  can  scarcely  tell  when  it  began. 
But  we  do  know  that  its  immediate  cause  was  the  abso- 
lute necessity  of  raising  money  in  large  sums  to  enable 
the  kings  to  prosecute  their  wars.  Thus,  we  find  in 
England  in  the  early  part  of  the  fourteenth  century 
Edward  III.  "selling  manumissions,"  as  it  is  politely 
described,  to  the  serfs  on  the  royal  demesne,  and  in 


WORKING   CLASS  IN  THE   TOWNS.        397 

France,  about  the  same  time,  Louis  X.  (le  Hutin, 
Headstrong)  issuing  his  famous  edict  by  which  his  serfs 
were  permitted  to  buy  from  him  their  freedom  at  a 
round  price.  The  example  of  the  kings  was  soon  fol- 
lowed by  the  great  vassals  of  the  crown,  with  what 
effect  on  the  condition  of  the  serfs  we  have  seen.  This 
was  the  starting-point  not  merely  in  industrial  freedom 
for  the  serfs  and  laborers  throughout  Europe,  but,  in 
England  at  least,  the  beginning  of  their  political  free- 
dom also.  Such  laws  as  the  Statute  of  Laborers,  which 
professed  to  regulate  arbitrarily  the  rate  of  wages,  or  the 
Statute  of  Apparel,  which  undertook  to  prescribe  the 
cost  of  the  dress  of  the  laboring  class,  however  much 
they  might  have  been  adapted  to  serfs,  who  held  every- 
thing at  the  mercy  or  caprice  of  the  lord,  were  entirely 
out  of  place  as  a  mode  of  ruling  free  laborers,  as  the 
government  found  to  its  cost  in  various  uprisings  of  the 
population. 

In  regard  to  the  working  classes  in  the  towns,  and 
their  relations  to  the  governing  power,  there  are  three 
things  to  be  considered  separately  if  we  wish  to  get  an 
accurate  idea  of  their  condition.  There  is,  first,  the  na- 
ture of  the  government  of  the  towns  themselves,  which 
at  an  early  period,  comparatively,  was  withdrawn  from 
the  feudal  lords  and  vested  in  the  local  magistrates; 
secondly,  there  were  the  trade  corporations  in  the  towns, 
one  for  each  principal  branch  of  industry,  whose  mem- 
bers were  the  sole  electors  of  the  town  magistrates; 

thirdly,  there  were  the  gildes  or  confr&ries,  composed 

34 


398  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

of  artisans,  usually,  but  not  always  nor  necessarily, 
forming  part  of  the  trade  corporations.  The  mediaeval 
life  in  the  towns  rested  upon  this  threefold  basis.  Out 
of  this  city  life,  and  by  virtue  of  the  education  and  ex- 
perience he  gained  there,  came  that  prominent  figure  in 
our  time, — the  modern  skilled  workman. 

I  have  described  in  a  previous  chapter  the  manner  in 
which  the  towns  secured  their  freedom  from  feudal 
servitude  and  the  transfer  of  the  local  government  to 
their  own  magistrates.  The  question  now  presents  itself 
how  this  change  of  the  governing  class  affected  the  traders 
and  mechanics,  the  bourgeoisie  as  well  as  the  workmen, 
who  had  no  vote  in  the  choice  of  their  rulers.  Accord- 
ing to  Mr.  Green,  the  rights  of  self-government,  of  free 
speech  in  free  meeting,  of  equal  justice  by  one's  equals, 
were  brought  safely  through  the  feudal  tyranny  in  Eng- 
land by  the  traders  and  shopkeepers  of  these  towns, 
organized  as  they  were  after  they  became  free  from 
feudal  servitude.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  claim  is 
somewhat  too  broad ;  for,  while  unquestionably  this 
organization  produced  much  political  activity  in  a  cer- 
tain class,  it  was  so  narrow  and  contracted  in  its  scope 
that  it  concerned  itself  very  little  with  the  interests  of 
the  larger  portion  of  the  inhabitants.  The  commune 
(which  was  the  technical  name  of  a  freed  city  in  France) 
had  its  own  revenues,  raised  by  means  of  taxation  and 
of  loans.  The  magistrates  were  generally  chosen  by 
the  members  of  the  trade  corporations  only.  The  kings 
were  favorable  to  the  establishment  of  free  cities  upon 


GOVERNMENT  OF  FREE   TOWNS.          399 

the  lands  of  their  great  vassals,  and  frequently  aided  the 
townsmen  in  their  efforts  to  secure  their  exemption  from 
feudal  servitude,  with  the  object,  however,  of  lessening 
the  power  of  the  feudal  lords  against  the  crown.  On 
their  own  royal  domains  they  discouraged  the  establish- 
ment of  free  cities,  lest  the  inhabitants  might  be  thus  with- 
drawn from  their  absolute  control.  Wherever,  however, 
a  free  town  was  created,  there  the  political  education  of 
the  citizen,  by  means  of  his  participation  in  the  govern- 
ment, began.  In  this  way,  both  in  France  and  in  Eng- 
land, the  power  of  that  class  which  had,  in  the  end,  so 
large  a  share  in  the  government  of  both  countries, — a 
class  composed  in  each  of  the  towns  of  the  principal 
traders  and  mechanics,  and  called  in  England  burgesses, 
and  in  France  la  bourgeoisie  or  tiers-etcd, — took  deep  root. 
The  organization  of  the  town  corporations  was  the  means 
by  which  this  class  entered  upon  political  life,  and  it  thus 
took  a  long  step  towards  acquiring  that  social  position 
and  influence  which  it  has  ever  since  retained. 

What,  then,  were  the  ideas,  what  was  the  policy,  which 
guided  these  town  governments  in  the  exercise  of  their 
functions  ?  The  best  answer  is  to  be  found  in  this  con- 
sideration, that  the  political  system  in  the  towns  was 
founded  upon  citizenship,  acquired  only  by  virtue  of 
membership  in  some  one  of  the  trade  corporations  exist- 
ing in  them.  From  the  beginning  it  had  some  of  the 
features  of  an  oligarchy.  It  was  when  the  inhabitants 
were  working  industriously  and  trying  to  accumulate 
property  that  they  felt  most  keenly  the  feudal  oppres- 


400  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

sion  of  their  seigneurs  and  strove  to  form  these  glides, 
or  corps  de  metiers,  as  they  were  called  in  France,  for 
their  mutual  protection.  The  motive  of  the  desire  for 
the  freedom  of  the  towns  was  the  security  of  their  pos- 
sessions ;  and  the  money  to  purchase  that  freedom  from 
the  lords  came  from  the  tradesmen,  who  wished  to  insure 
their  property  by  doing  away  with  any  pretext  for  ar- 
bitrary acts.  Hence  the  first  thing  done  by  these  free 
towns  was  to  adopt  measures,  after  their  own  peculiar 
fashion,  to  protect  the  rights  of  labor.  And  these  rights 
were  not  at  all  the  rights  belonging  in  common  to  all 
workmen,  but  the  particular  rights  and  privileges  of  cer- 
tain workmen  formed  into  trade  corporations  within  the 
town,  not  unlike,  in  many  respects,  our  modern  trade- 
unions.  These  rights  were  claimed  and  strenuously 
defended  for  centuries  against  any  interference,  from 
outside  the  town,  and  were  in  no  way  founded  upon  any 
theory  of  the  equality  of  all  workmen,  but  were  rather 
regarded  in  the  nature  of  privileges.  The  avowed  policy 
was  everywhere  to  establish  monopolies  in  the  fullest 
sense  of  the  word,  to  maintain  a  discrimination  against 
those  of  the  non-privileged  class,  both  outside  and  in- 
side the  town.  Their  constant  efforts,  as  long  as  they 
remained  self-governing,  were  thus  directed  to  the  special 
protection  of  those  of  the  inhabitants  who  were  members 
of  the  trade  corporations,  and  this  was  done  by  main- 
taining their  exclusive  right  to  work  within  the  town, 
by  jealously  guarding  against  the  intrusion  of  strangers 
into  the  trades  carried  on  there,  and,  in  short,  by  every 


EDUCATION  OF  THE   WORKMAN.         401 

measure  which  made  the  labor  of  those  they  represented 
more  profitable.  They  did  not  even  hesitate  to  reduce 
the  number  of  the  workmen,  so  as  to  make  the  gains  of 
those  who  had  the  exclusive  privilege  of  work  greater. 

For  all  practical  purposes,  then,  the  government  of 
the  free  towns  was  merely  the  government  of  the  trades 
forming  their  constituency,  and  their  policy  was  a  policy 
of  trading  privilege  and  monopoly.  While  this  policy, 
perhaps,  was  necessary  for  their  own  protection  against 
the  lawlessness  of  the  time,  and  while  no  doubt  it 
taught  the  lesson  which  is  the  first  to  be  learned  in  a 
popular  government,  the  habit  of  mutual  aid  for  mutual 
protection,  yet  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  the  system 
was  wholly  out  of  sympathy  with  that  generous  recog- 
nition of  the  universal  rights  of  man,  as  such,  to  free- 
dom, which  is  the  most  characteristic  and  fruitful  truth 
of  our  own  times. 

On  what  may  be  called  the  educational  side  the  gov- 
ernment of  free  cities  had  some  important  advantages. 
Its  policy  of  the  jealous  exclusion  of  strangers  from  the 
trades  of  the  town  made  it  necessary  that  those  trades 
should  be  so  organized  that  their  members  should  pro- 
duce good  work,  and  that  they  should  come,  with  that 
object  in  view,  under  the  strictest  discipline.  Each  of 
the  trade  gildes  was  provided  with  an  elaborate  organi- 
zation to  effect  this  purpose.  The  members  were  divided, 
as  a  general  rule,  into  three  classes, — the  apprentices,  the 
workmen,  and  the  masters.  The  apprentices,  who  were 

of  a  limited  number  (and  usually  the  sons  of  the  work- 

34* 


402  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

men  or  of  the  masters  only  were  admitted  to  that  posi- 
tion), were  most  carefully  trained  and  instructed  in  their 
particular  art,  or  mystery,  as  it  was  called.  No  one  was 
allowed  to  pass  from  a  lower  grade  to  a  higher  in  the 
gilde  without  the  strictest  examination,  not  merely  as  to 
his  capacity  as  a  workman,  but  as  to  his  moral  character 
also.  Those  who  aspired  after  this  examination  to  the 
place  of  master-workmen  in  any  particular  craft  were 
obliged  not  only,  as  I  have  said,  to  have  passed  a  long 
period  of  severe  apprenticeship,  but  were  also  required 
before  their  admission  to  the  full  privilege  of  a  master 
to  produce  a  specimen  of  their  skill  in  their  particular 
art  (called  in  France  a  chef-d'oeuvre),  which  was  rigor- 
ously criticised  and  often  found  deficient  by  the  exam- 
ining board,  composed  of  the  chiefs  of  the  company. 
The  result  of  all  this  education  was  to  produce,  neces- 
sarily, thoroughly  skilled  workmen  in  numbers  probably 
greater  than  any  other  system  of  the  organization  of 
labor  has  been  able  to  do.  Again,  every  piece  of  work 
made  by  any  member  of  the  craft  at  any  time,  no  matter 
what  was  his  grade  in  the  company,  was  subjected  before 
it  was  offered  for  sale  to  a  minute  and  thorough  inspec- 
tion by  officers  of  the  body.  One  obvious  result  of  such 
a  system  was  to  maintain  among  the  artisans,  members 
of  the  same  gilde,  a  strong  feeling  of  pride  in  their 
work  and  of  attachment  to  the  company  which  protected 
them  in  it.  But  it  may  be  readily  inferred  that  this 
sentiment  was  not  confined  in  its  influence  upon  the 
workman  merely  to  his  special  position  as  such.  It  no 


GILDES  AND   CONFRERIES,  4Q3 

doabt  nourished  in  him  some  of  the  most  important 
characteristics  of  the  true  citizen,  such  as  love  of  in- 
dustry, and  personal  independence,  and  city  pride ;  and 
all  this  is  to  be  considered  as  a  compensating  circum- 
stance  when  we  remember  how  completely  the  system 
was  based  upon  the  monopoly  and  exclusive  privilege 
of  the  few. 

There  was  another  peculiarity  which  grew  out  of  the 
government  of  the  free  cities  by  means  of  these  trading 
corporations,  which  had  an  immense  influence  upon  city 
life  during  the  Middle  Age.  .  Inseparably  associated 
with  each  of  these  trade  companies,  although  not  always 
forming  part  of  it,  was  a  charitable  organization  for  the 
benefit  of  its  members,  called  in  England  a  gtide,  and  in 
France  a  canfrerie.  The  principle  of  these  organizations, 
which  was  that  of  the  mutual  aid  and  protection  of  hs 
members,  is  among  the  oldest  and  most  permanent  ideas 
of  the  Teutonic  race,  and  was  in  full  operation  for  cer- 
tain purposes  long  before  free  cities  or  trade  corporations 
were  thought  of.  In  the  days  before  the  invasions 
societies  existed  in  Germany  and  the  North  of  Europe 
which  were  called  g&des.  They  were  so  called  because 
the  word  signifies  a  feast,  given  at  the  common  expcaat 
of  the  society  whose  members  partook  of  it,  and  at  these 
feasts  it  was  the  custom  for  those  present  to  take  an  oath 
to  aid  and  protect  each  other.  Here  we  see  the  first 
germ  of  that  spirit  of  association  and  of  mutual  and 
voluntary  helpfulness  which  has  always  distinguished, 
and  to  this  day  distinguishes,  the  Teutonic  from  the 


404  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

Latin  races.  The  aid  and  protection  which  these  glides 
were  organized  to  afford  were  not  of  that  kind  which 
their  successors  were  called  upon  to  give.  The  ancient 
Germans,  of  course,  had  no  mechanic  arts  and  no  com- 
mercial occupations;  but  in  the  absence  of  anything  like 
law  or  public  order  in  those  rude  days  they  felt  the 
need  of  seeking  by  combination  with  their  comrades  that 
protection  for  their  persons  and  their  property  which  their 
nominal  chief  could  not  or  would  not  give  them.  The 
weak,  therefore,  associated  themselves  with  the  strong  to 
make  a  common  resistance  to  oppression;  they  bound 
themselves  to  each  other  by  a  solemn  oath ;  they  chose 
their  leaders,  and,  when  they  became  Christians,  a  patron 
saint ;  they  ate  and  drank  together  at  certain  fixed  pe- 
riods ;  and,  emboldened  by  their  numbers,  they  asserted 
their  power  and  became  in  time  themselves  the  lawless 
oppressors  of  others. 

Out  of  this  ancient  and  persistent  habit  of  mutual  help- 
fulness grew  what  was  known  in  England's  Saxon  days 
as  frank-pledge,  by  which,  as  I  have  before  explained, 
a  responsibility  for  the  acts  and  offences  of  each  member 
of  the  society  was  atttached  not  primarily  to  himself  but 
to  his  family,  and  especially  to  the  glide  to  which  he 
belonged,  and  this  frank-pledge  thus  became  an  important 
instrument  of  social  order  in  those  days.  Any  member 
could  call  upon  his  glide  brothers  for  assistance  in  case 
of  violence  and  wrong;  if  falsely  accused,  they  appeared 
in  court  as  his  compurgators ;  if  poor,  they  supported, 
and  when  dead  they  buried  him.  On  the  other  hand, 


ADVANTAGES  OF  THE   CONFRERIES.     405 

each  member  was  responsible  to  the  gilde,  as  it  was  to 
the  State,  for  order  and  obedience  to  the  laws.  A  wrong 
of  brother  against  brother  was  also  a  wrong  against  the 
general  body  of  the  gilde,  and  was  punished  in  the  last 
resort  by  expulsion,  which  left  the  offender  a  lawless 
man  and  an  outcast.  In  its  main  features  this  was 
the  organization  of  the  trade  glides  in  towns,  exclusive 
monopoly  of  work,  and  charitable  aid  to  suffering  com- 
rades. But  we  must  not  forget  that  while  the  regu- 
lations of  the  trade  corporations  were  founded  upon  the 
selfishness  and  cupidity  of  the  citizen  and  the  artisan, 
those  adopted  by  the  gildes  or  confrfries  were  taught  by 
that  Divine  charity  which  is  the  source  of  the  virtues 
of  the  man  and  the  Christian. 

The  members  of  the  confrerie  concerned  themselves 
about  the  happiness  of  their  fellow-members,  as  the 
burghers  did  about  their  privileges.  When  in  danger 
they  invoked  the  Divine  aid,  and  caused  prayers  and 
masses  to  be  said  for  the  benefit  not  merely  of  their 
own  souls,  but  for  those  of  their  relations,  friends,  and 
benefactors  also.  Their  object  was  to  make  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  gilde,  who  were  also  generally  of  the  same 
trade,  one  family  united  in  one  faith  under  the  protection 
of  the  same  saint  and  brought  into  close  relations  by 
the  enjoyments  of  a  common  social  intercourse.  No  one 
of  the  members  was  permitted  to  live  in  poverty:  the 
two  opposite  principles  of  pride  in  their  gilde,  and  the 
charity  which  was  its  ruling  motive,  alike  forbade  it. 
Like  some  of  our  modern  institutions  of  charity  which 


406  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

are  the  direct  and  legitimate  successors  of  the  gildes  of 
the  Middle  Age,  such  as  the  Free-Masons,  the  Odd- 
Fellows,  and  kindred  associations,  a  good  deal  of  both 
time  and  money  may  have  been  wasted  in  processions, 
regalia,  and  the  like,  while  they  were  carrying  on  some 
of  their  work;  and  yet  we  must  not  forget  that  the  great 
motive  and  object  of  that  work  was  to  aid  those  whom 
sickness  or  misfortune  had  made  helpless.  When  we 
think  of  the  civilizing  power  in  our  days  among  work- 
men of  mutual  aid  societies,  we  may  imagine  the  influ- 
ence of  organizations  with  the  same  end  in  view  in  the 
Middle  Age.  Close  union  between  workers  at  the  same 
trade,  social  enjoyments  in  common,  innocent  recreation 
for  the  workman  who  was  almost  constantly  penned  up 
in  his  shop,  prayers  said  in  common,  a  large  spirit  of 
charity  and  mutual  succor  from  the  ills  of  poverty, — such 
was  the  ideal  life  of  workmen  belonging  to  the  privileged 
gildes  in  the  free  cities  of  the  Middle  Age.  Could  it 
have  been  made  the  real  and  actual  life  of  such  work- 
men, what  a  paradise  society  would  have  become ! 

There  can  be,  I  think,  no  doubt  that  the  privileged 
workmen  in  the  towns  (not  the  mass  of  the  laboring 
population  outside  the  gildes,  who,  as  I  have  said,  like 
the  proletarii  or  the  mlserrima  plebs  of  Rome,  were  in 
fact,  if  not  in  name,  mere  slaves)  were,  on  the  whole, 
more  than  contented  with  their  position.  The  work- 
man loved  his  gilde;  he  felt  that  he  had  not  been 
forced  by  the  despotism  of  a  master  to  enter  it,  as  the 
Roman  workman  went  into  the  collegium,  whether  he 


FEUDAL  AND  FREE  LABORERS.          407 

would  or  not.  Besides,  he  felt  that  he  had  reached  the 
rank  he  held  in  the  glide  by  his  own  efforts,  and  he 
fancied  that  the  privileges  which  he  enjoyed  by  virtue 
of  his  membership  had  come  down  to  him  from  the  re- 
motest antiquity.  He  was  proud  of  his  rights,  witli  that 
sort  of  intense  pride  which  poor  human  nature  always 
feels  when  it  is  conscious  that  it  has  the  exclusive 
possession  of  a  privilege.  That  privilege  which  he 
guarded  with  such  jealous  care  was  as  his  life-blood, 
for  by  it  he  and  his  family  were  protected  not  merely 
from  the  rivalry  of  strangers  in  their  trade,  but  also 
from  the  arbitrary  caprice  of  the  lord.  Besides  this,  he 
generally  helped  to  choose  his  own  magistrates,  aided 
to  enforce  the  laws  he  had  had  a  part  in  making,  was 
judged  by  his  own  peers,  and  generally  took  a  consider- 
able part  in  the  government  of  the  town  in  which  he 
lived,  the  gilde  to  which  he  belonged  being  both  a 
subdivision  of  the  municipality  and  a  school  of  political 
education. 

The  movement  which  resulted  in  rendering  both  in 
the  towns  and  in  the  rural  districts  the  feudal  dues  a 
fixed  and  not  an  arbitrary  sum  was  not  freedom  in  our 
sense,  but  no  doubt  it  was  the  first  step  made  by  the 
working  class  in  both  towards  political  liberty  and  social 
equality ;  but  the  goal  was  far  distant,  and  the  path  by 
which  they  reached  it  a  most  difficult  one.  Such  was 
the  oppression  of  labor  by  arbitrary  exactions  in  France 
that  an  agreement  on  the  part  of  the  lords  to  be  con- 
tent with  any  portion  of  it,  no  matter  how  large,  pro- 


408  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

vided  that  portion  was  a  fixed  amount  and  sum  settled 
beforehand,  was  regarded  as  an  immense  boon.  But 
neither  in  the  towns  nor  in  the  country  was  the  work- 
man long  permitted  to  be  under  the  delusion  that  he  had 
been  an  immediate  gainer  by  freedom  from  feudal  ser- 
vices. For  the  arbitrary  feudal  dues  were  substituted 
fixed  taxes  to  the  towns  and  the  king,  the  only  change 
being  that  they  were  regularly  levied  and  constantly  in- 
creased in  number  and  in  amount.  It  would  be  impos- 
sible here  to  enumerate  all  the  burdens  which  the  fiscal 
ingenuity  of  the  ministers  of  the  King  of  France  and 
of  his  great  vassals,  who  were  all  petty  sovereigns,  im- 
posed upon  the  products  of  labor  for  many  generations. 
A  glance  at  some  of  them  is  instructive,  especially  if  the 
history  of  England  at  contemporaneous  periods,  so  far 
as  it  affects  the  labor  question,  be  kept  in  view.  There 
was  the  taitte,  a  general  tax  levied  upon  the  presumed 
value  of  each  person's  estate,  the  hauban,  on  its  product, 
the  transportation-tax,  road-tax,  ferry-tax,  river-tolls, 
tax  on  all  sales  either  of  produce  or  merchandise.  These 
are  only  specimens  of  the  many  vexatious  claims  which 
the  king  or  the  lord  who  was  the  sovereign  made  upon 
the  inhabitants  of  town  or  country.  Then  in  addition 
there  were  the  corvees,  the  pressure  of  which  was  most 
felt  by  the  rural  population,  such  as  the  obligation  of 
each  peasant  to  have  his  grain  ground  at  the  lord's  mill, 
his  grapes  turned  into  wine  at  the  lord's  press,  and  his 
flour  made  into  bread  at  the  lord's  bakery,  and  all  this, 
of  course,  at  the  lord's  prices. 


DISCONTENT  IN  FRANCE.  499 

Under  such  a  system,  as  the  misery  of  the  people  in- 
creased the  productiveness  of  labor  diminished,  and  the 
wonder  is  that  the  French  workmen  were  not  wholly 
crushed;  but  patience  was  for  a  long  time  the  badge  of 
all  their  tribe,  and  the  spirit  of  resistance  seemed  driven 
out  of  them  by  the  habit  of  slavery.  It  was  not  until 
seven-eighths  of  the  population  of  France  found  that 
four-fifths  of  the  product  of  their  industry  were  taken 
from  them  to  support  the  other  eighth  of  the  popula- 
tion, composed  of  the  nobles  and  the  clergy  (who  paid 
no  taxes  and  were  subject  to  no  corvees),  in  idleness  and 
luxury,  that  their  large  stock  of  that  virtue  became 
at  last  exhausted.  Then  wide-spread  revolt,  under  the 
name  of  La,  Jacquerie,  among  the  peasants  and  the  un- 
enfranchised workmen  of  the  towns,  added  during  the 
fourteenth  century  the  misery  of  civil  war  to  the  horrors 
of  the  English  invasion,  and  to  the  wretched  condition 
of  those  who  depended  upon  the  reward  of  their  labor 
to  keep  them  from  starvation.  These  revolts  only  weak- 
ened the  people,  and  were  powerless  to  effect  a  change. 
The  increasing  expenses  of  the  kings  of  the  Valois  race, 
owing  to  their  wars  and  the  extravagant  habits  of  the 
court,  made  necessary  new  expedients  still  more  oppres- 
sive than  the  old  of  raising  money  from  the  exhausted 
population.  The  unwillingness  or  inability  of  the  States- 
General, 'which  was  supposed  to  represent  all  classes  in 
Ihe  kingdom,  to  afford  any  relief,  and  the  harsh  exercise 
of  the  royal  authority  in  enforcing  its  demands  upon 
those  towns  which  had  once  been  its  allies  in  subverting 

35 


410  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  overgrown  pretensions  of  the  feudal  nobility,  drove 
the  people  to  despair.  All  this,  persisted  in  for  centuries, 
with  an  utter  disregard  of  the  welfare  or  happiness  of 
the  people,  could  have  but  one  ending;  and  that  was 
reached  in  the  terrible  vengeance  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution. Even  those  who  at  that  time  looked  back  most 
calmly  on  the  history  of  their  country  felt  that  that 
history  taught  them  that  there  could  be  but  one  remedy 
against  a  continuance  of  the  horrors  from  which  they 
had  suffered  for  more  than  five  hundred  years,  and  that 
was  to  be  found  in  the  utter  destruction  of  the  privileged 
classes,  the  clergy  and  the  nobility  of  France.  That 
revolution  was  simply  an  explosion  of  the  dangerous 
elements  which  had  been  gradually  gathering  in  the 
heart  of  the  country  since  it  had  become  apparent  that 
the  promise  of  freedom  to  the  working  classes  and  of 
representative  institutions  was  never  to  be  fulfilled. 
They  never  forgot  that  this  promise  had  been  constantly 
broken  by  the  rulers  of  France  ever  since  the  days  of 
Philippe  le  Bel.  The  French  Revolution,  then,  first  gave 
to  traders  and  mechanics  on  the  Continent  of  Europe 
political  and  social  equality,  and  hence  placed  upon  a 
permanent  basis  the  influence  and  control  of  the  class 
who  are  such  conspicuous  actors  in  the  social  life  of  our 
time. 

The  contrast  between  the  history  of  France  and  that 
of  England,  so  far  as  the  labor  question  is  concerned,  is 
very  striking  and  instructive.  The  English  were  called 
by  Napoleon  I.  "a  nation  of  shopkeepers;"  and  it  is 


CONTRAST  IN  ENGLAND.  41 1 

certain  that  the  legislation  of  the  country,  from  the  time 
of  the  early  Norman  kings  to  the  present,  has  been  dic- 
tated by  an  unceasing  effort  to  extend  the  influence  in  the 
government  of  the  country  of  the  trading  classes.  The 
feudal  system,  and  afterwards  the  autocratic  monarchical 
system,  were  thoroughly  organized  and  established  in 
England,  but  neither  of  them  was  strong  enough  to 
resist  the  force  of  enfranchised  workmen  contending  for 
the  rights  of  labor.  By  the  charter  of  Henry  I.  (1071- 
1127)  the  king  promised  that  the  barons  should  be 
forced  to  do  justice  to  their  serfs,  and  to  renounce  the 
practice  of  tyrannical  exactions  from  them.  His  grand- 
son, Henry  II.  (1178),  among  other  reforms,  divided  the 
kingdom  into  six  judicial  circuits,  the  courts  in  which 
were  presided  over  by  judges  of  his  own  appointment, 
and  whose  functions  were  extended  to  the  abolition  of 
all  feudal  exemptions  from  the  royal  jurisdiction.  ,  The 
Magna  Charta  of  King  John  (1215),  besides  establish- 
ing that  fundamental  principle  of  English  freedom,  "that 
no  man  in  the  realm  should  be  deprived  of  his  life,  lib- 
erty, or  property,  except  by  the  judgment  of  his  peers 
and  by  the  law  of  the  land,"  provided  that  the  serfs  on 
the  estates  of  the  barons  should  be  protected  from  their 
lawless  exactions,  in  precisely  the  same  terms  as  these 
barons  themselves  were  guaranteed  protection  against  the 
oppression  of  the  crown.  The  towns,  too,  were  secured 
in  the  enjoyment  of  their  municipal  privileges,  in  their 
freedom  from  arbitrary  taxation,  in  their  rights  of  jus- 
tice and  of  common  deliberation,  and  in  their  power  to 


412  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

regulate  trade  within  their  limits.  But  the  great  and 
fatal  blow  against  the  supremacy  of  the  feudal  system  in 
England  was  struck  when,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  III., 
Simon  de  Montfort,  as  has  been  explained  in  a  previous 
chapter,  summoned  each  town  in  the  kingdom  to  elect 
two  burgesses  who  should  represent  it  in  Parliament. 
Out  of  this  revolutionary  movement  (1264)  grew  the 
House  of  Commons.  This  body,  and  especially  the  bur- 
gesses who  represented  the  trading  class  in  it,  in  the  end 
directed  the  policy  of  the  government.  To  the  influence 
of  this  class  we  owe  that  policy  in  regard  to  trade  and 
labor  which,  truly  representing  the  English  instincts  in 
such  matters,  always  makes  itself  heard  with  paramount 
authority  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Its  history  pre- 
sents to  us  the  most  striking  picture  of  the  virtues  and 
defects  of  a  people  whose  civilization  is  the  outgrowth  of 
many  and  of  diverse  influences,  but  of  none  more  potent 
than  the  desire  to  preserve  the  supremacy  of  British 
trade,  which  by  many  is  regarded  as  the  necessary  result 
of  a  devotion  to  British  interests. 


CHAPTER    XV. 

MEDIEVAL   COMMERCE. 

WITH  our  conceptions  of  a  true  civilization  is  insepa- 
rably associated  the  idea  of  movement.  In  our  estimate 
of  the  influences  which  control  the  destiny  of  a  people, 
movement  almost  always  signifies  progress  and  improve- 
ment, and  immobility,  stagnation  and  sometimes  decay. 
We  think,  for  instance,  of  the  history  of  a  vast  empire 
like  that  of  China,  and  we  see  the  same  general  ideas — 
religious,  political,  and  educational — prevailing  there 
now  which  have  controlled  the  country  for  thousands  of 
years,  and  that  this  condition  is  the  result  of  a  fixed 
policy  of  immobility  in  accordance  with  the  views  of  all 
its  great  sages,  philosophers,  and  statesmen.  Although 
we  cannot  deny  that  in  one  sense  the  Chinese  are  a  highly 
civilized  people,  yet  we  feel  that  from  our  point  of 
view  their  system  is  wholly  out  of  harmony  with  our 
ideal  of  civilization,  simply  because  it  is  stationary  and 
non-receptive,  and  therefore  we  regard  their  condition 
as  non-progressive,  if  not  actually  retrograde.  We  do 
this,  not  merely  because  it  is  unlike  our  own,  but  because 
it  is  based  upon  the  theory  that  it  was  completed  for  its 
own  purposes  ages  ago,  and  because  it  carefully  ex- 
cludes what  we  have  been  taught  from  history  to  think 

is  the  most  valuable  peculiarity  of  any  civilization,  ite 

35*  413 


414  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

capacity  for  improvement.  We  believe  that  movement 
or  change  the  result  of  a  certain  receptivity  is  essential 
to  true  progress,  and  hence  we  have  come  to  consider 
these  two  things  as  bearing  to  each  other  the  relation  of 
cause  and  effect. 

We  have,  however,  also  learned  that  it  is  not  every 
cause  which  breaks  up  the  monotony  of  a  nation's  life 
and  disturbs  its  old  relations,  not  every  movement,  in 
other  words,  which  necessarily  promotes  civilization  and 
progress.  Take  India  for  instance,  a  country  which, 
from  the  time  of  the  first  Aryan  invaders  to  the  present, 
has  been  overrun  by  foreign  arms  and  ruled  by  foreign 
dynasties,  which  has  been  the  spoil  of  such  scourges  of 
God  as  Genghis-Khan,  Tamerlane,  and  the  long  line  of 
despots  called  the  Great  Moguls,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
rule  of  the  East  India  Company,  and  of  its  successor,  the 
English  government.  This  country  has  been  subdued 
over  and  over  again,  and  dynasties  established  by  men 
differing  in  religion,  race,  and  political  ideas,  having 
nothing  in  common  but  the  lust  of  conquest ;  indeed,  in 
its  history  there  seems  to  have  been  always  movement 
of  a  certain  kind ;  yet,  so  far  as  Indian  life  and  Indian 
habits,  Indian  civilization,  in  short,  are  concerned,  the 
movement  has  been  hardly  more  than  a  ripple  on  the 
surface ;  the  result  of  it  all  has  been  conquest,  and  not 
assimilation  and  therefore  gradual  growth  and  change. 
Indian  life  in  its  essential  features  does  not  differ  from 
what  it  was  when  Alexander  the  Great  declared  its 
great  river  the  boundary  of  his  Empire. 


MOVEMENT  AND  ASSIMILATION.          415 

Hence  movement  in  order  to  produce  a  fruitful  civil- 
ization must  be  something  more  than  mere  conquest,  or 
even  the  permanent  occupation  of  one  country  by  the 
people  of  another.  I  have  endeavored  to  exhibit  the 
great  historical  examples  of  the  principle  of  progress 
resulting  from  true  assimilation  following  the  conquest 
of  one  country  by  another  in  the  case  of  the  barbarian 
invasions  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Under  the  circum- 
stances which  I  have  detailed,  by  means  of  the  assimila- 
tion of  the  Teutonic  principle  of  personal  independence 
with  the  Roman  organization  of  law  and  its  supremacy, 
powerfully  aided  by  the  influence  of  a  common  Chris- 
tianity, the  civilization  of  our  modern  times  grew  out 
of  these  heterogeneous,  if  not  opposite,  elements.  The 
glory  of  European  civilization  is  that  it  is  formed  in  no 
cast-iron  mould,  but  is  always  more  or  less  in  a  condition 
to  be  shaped  by  the  ideas,  discoveries,  inventions,  or  new 
relations — the  environment,  as  it  has  been  called — which 
may  grow  up  around  it  at  any  particular  epoch. 

During  the  darkest  period  of  the  Middle  Age,  after 
the  fusion  of  the  barbarian,  the  Roman,  and  the  Church 
was  completed,  it  seemed  that  the  greatest  danger  to  its 
life  was  from  that  immobility  which  is  characteristic  of 
Oriental  civilizations  settling  upon  it.  I  conceive  that 
Europe  was  saved  from  the  dangers  of  this  immobility, 
that  the  life  of  her  people  was  made  not  only  more  com- 
fortable, refined,  and  cultivated,  but  also  more  liberal, 
comprehensive,  and  receptive,  by  the  peaceable  means 
of  the  more  frequent  intercourse  of  her  people,  not  only 


416  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

with  their  own  countrymen,  but  also  and  especially  with 
the  Mohammedans  of  the  East,  through  the  instrumen- 
tality of  commerce. 

To  nations  at  a  certain  stage  of  their  life,  which  may 
be  called  the  formative  or  receptive  stage,  commerce  has 
always  proved  the  great  civilizer;  and  indeed  I  might 
go  further,  and  say  that  just  in  proportion  to  a  nation's 
foreign  intercourse,  not  confining  such  intercourse  to  an 
exchange  of  commodities  merely,  has  its  civilization  been 
promoted.  The  greatest  States  of  antiquity  gained  their 
real  and  permanent  influence  from  the  political  education 
and  habits  of  mind  which  this  intercourse  fostered,  a 
condition  which  became  a  more  important  element  in 
shaping  their  life  than  even  the  changes  which  were  the 
result  of  the  wealth  which  commerce  brought  to  them. 
Commerce  followed  in  the  wake  of  empire  then,  as  it 
does  now.  What  would  have  been  the  outcome  of 
Greek  civilization  had  it  not  been  for  the  influence  and 
power  of  the  Greek  commercial  colonies  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  the  Black  Sea  ?  and  in  what  would  the  con- 
quests of  the  Romans  have  differed  from  those  of  Attila 
and  Tamerlane  had  not  their  intercourse  with  the  Greeks 
added  to  their  power  of  subduing  and  plundering  na- 
tions the  knowledge  of  the  Greek  art  of  civilizing  them  ? 
Foreign  conquests  have  a  permanent  influence  only  as 
they  engraft  the  ideas  of  the  conquerors  upon  the  nations 
they  subdue. 

The  principle  of  the  necessity  of  intercourse  with 
foreign  peoples  in  order  to  better  our  own  is  a  cardinal 


ISOLATION  OF  MEDIAEVAL    TIMES.        417 

principle  with  all  students  of  the  history  of  civilization. 
The  human  animal,  like  all  other  animals,  is  improved 
after  a  time  by  the  infusion  of  new  blood,  which  is  only 
another  name  for  new  ideas.  "  If  I  were  asked,"  says 
Sismondi,  a  writer  not  at  all  in  sympathy  with  the  prac- 
tices of  Catholicism,  "  what  was  the  knowledge  acquired 
during  the  Middle  Age  which  did  most  to  quicken  and 
develop  the  intelligence  of  the  people  of  that  time,  I 
should  say,  without  the  slightest  hesitation,  the  knowl- 
edge of  geography  acquired  by  the  pilgrims  to  the  Holy 
Land." 

Let  us  consider,  then,  the  obstacles  which  for  a  long 
time  during  the  Middle  Age  restricted  that  commercial 
intercourse  which  we  deem  so  essential  to  progress,  and 
then  we  may  better  understand  the  changes  which  took 
place  in  the  whole  aspect  of  society  when  commerce  was 
revived  and  extended.  That  which  strikes  us  most  for- 
cibly when  we  think  of  the  condition  of  the  people  of 
Western  Europe  in  the  Middle  Age  is  their  isolation 
from  the  rest  of  the  world,  an  isolation  caused  by  the 
absence  not  only  of  commercial  intercourse,  but  of  in- 
tercourse of  any  kind,  with  the  nations  by  which  they 
were  surrounded.  There  was,  it  is  true,  one  common 
bond  which  united  them, — that  of  the  Christian  faith,, 
as  organized  on  the  fundamental  principle  of  submission 
to  a  common  spiritual  father  called  the  Pope ;  but  the 
more  closely  they  were  tied  together  by  such  a  chain 
as  this  the  more  repellent  and  unsympathizing  they 
became  to  those  outside  of  them.  To  maintain  any 


418  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

relations  with  the  infidel  Mussulmans,  who  at  that  time 
had  the  monopoly  of  the  productive  resources  of  the 
world,  was  a  crime  against  the  Church ;  and  intercourse 
with  other  Christian  countries,  then  peopled  by  those 
called  Greek  schismatics,  was  an  offence  against  the  same 
authority  scarcely  less  grave.  Wars  on  a  large  scale, 
and  between  communities  differing  in  religion,  habits, 
and  ideas,  had  ceased,  so  that  the  lessons  which  even  that 
stern  teacher  had  so  often  taught  the  world  by  educing 
a  working  system  of  an  improved  kind  out  of  the  con- 
flict of  hostile  races  were  no  longer  learned.  The  con- 
sequence was  that  Western  Europe,  from  the  period  of 
the  cessation  of  the  invasions  down  to  that  of  the  Cru- 
sades, had  a  population  more  ignorant,  brutalized,  and, 
in  our  modern  sense,  more  uncivilized,  than  during  the 
worst  period  of  the  decaying  Roman  Empire. 

As  if  to  make  the  contrast  more  striking,  that  portion 
of  Europe  then  under  the  Pope's  obedience  was  sur- 
rounded both  on  the  east  and  west  by  communities  dif- 
fering from  it  in  the  form  of  their  religion,  but  vastly 
superior  to  it  in  all  that  makes  a  civilized  people.  It  is 
a  humiliating  confession  for  the  student  of  Christian 
civilization  to  make,  but  it  must  be  made  if  the  truth  is 
to  be  spoken,  that  Spain  under  the  Saracens,  Western 
Asia  under  the  Caliphs  of  Bagdad,  and  even  the  Byzan- 
tine Greeks,  in  all  the  useful  arts,  as  well  in  those  which 
adorn  life  as  in  those  qualities  of  culture,  refinement, 
and  general  intelligence  which  raise  a  people  in  the  scale 
of  national  well-being,  were  immeasurably  superior  to 


ROMAN  COMMERCE.  419 

the  coarse  knights,  the  coarser  peasants,  and  the  fanatical 
priests  who  at  that  time  made  up  European  Christian 
society.  As  I  have  often  said,  the  seed  was  indeed 
there,  but  its  growth  was  slow,  covered  up  as  it  was  by 
the  protecting  arm  of  the  Church  and  choked  by  the 
dense  ignorance  of  the  people.  It  needed  the  warmth 
and  light  which  came  from  other  lands  to  quicken  its 
life.  In  other  words,  there  would  probably  have  been 
no  civilization,  in  our  sense,  in  Europe,  had  there  not 
been  commerce  with  the  East ;  and  the  history  of  the 
development  of  that  commerce  in  all  its  far-reaching 
effects  is  the  history  of  one  of  the  richest  and  most 
fruitful  sources  of  our  modern  life. 

There  is,  therefore,  a  peculiar  interest  in  the  study  of 
the  history  of  medieval  commerce.  The  age  stands  out 
in  striking  contrast  in  this  respect  both  with  that  which 
preceded  and  that  which  followed  it.  The  Roman  Em- 
pire, great  as  it  was  by  its  arms,  owed  even  more  of  its 
greatness,  or  at  least  its  permanent  influence  in  the  world, 
to  its  commercial  intercourse.  As  soon  as  the  Roman 
power  was  definitively  established  in  Italy  by  the  result 
of  the  Punic  Wars,  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  the  great 
basin  of  the  civilizations  of  antiquity,  bathing  three  con- 
tinents with  its  waters,  became  the  highway  not  merely 
to  the  farther  conquests  of  its  arms,  but,  what  is  more 
important,  to  its  relations  with  peoples  of  a  different 
type  from  its  own.  The  Romans  gained  by  these 
conquests  and  the  intercourse  resulting  from  them  not 
merely  power  and  wealth,  but  also  a  knowledge  of  that 


420  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

art  in  which  they  have  excelled  any  people  in  history, 
and  which  became  the  most  characteristic  and  permanent 
feature  of  their  policy, — the  art  of  successfully  govern- 
ing peoples  of  different  races  and  religions.  That  art 
rests  mainly,  I  conceive,  upon  a  spirit  of  comprehensive- 
ness, the  result  of  a  large  experience  of  different  types, 
of  which  the  wonderful  organization  of  their  law  was 
the  outgrowth.  We  may  safely  say  that  the  Romans 
would  never  have  adopted  such  a  system  had  they 
confined  themselves  to  Italy.  This,  however,  was  the 
general  result,  reached  very  gradually,  and  dependent 
in  a  great  measure  on  the  changes  produced  by  the 
intercourse  of  the  Romans  with  strange  people,  and  the 
necessity  of  adapting  their  rule  to  foreign  habits,  and 
the  introduction  of  a  certain  cosmopolitan  spirit  among 
themselves.  We  do  not  always  get  an  adequate  idea  of 
the  extent  of  ancient  commerce,  and  especially  of  that 
of  the  Romans,  so  that  we  fail  to  estimate  rightly  the 
importance  of  its  influence  in  history. 

We  must  remember  that  the  Romans,  by  their  con- 
quests and  by  their  subsequent  commercial  intercourse, 
were  brought  into  relations  with  the  m  st  wealthy  and 
flourishing  communities  of  the  world.  From  Greece 
and  the  Greek  colonies  in  the  Mediterranean  and  the 
Black  Sea  they  brought  not  only  their  literature  and 
their  laws  (so  potent  in  shaping  their  destiny),  but  also 
those  habits  and  tastes  for  refinement  and  luxury  and 
the  means  of  gratifying  them  which  made  the  Roman 
character  during  the  Empire  so  different  from  what  it 


THE   TRADE   WITH  THE  EAST.  421 

had  been  under  the  republic.  In  those  days  riches  and 
culture  were  far  more  inseparable  in  men's  minds  than 
they  have  ever  been  since.  All  the  precious  products  of 
the  Greek  cities,  in  Greece  proper  and  in  Asia  Minor, 
flowed  in  abundant  streams  into  one  reservoir,  the  city 
of  Rome,  which  thus  became  not  only  the  Imperial 
city,  but  the  richest  city  in  the  world.  The  love  of 
luxury  and  the  means  of  paying  for  its  enjoyment  stim- 
ulated in  a  wonderful  degree  commercial  enterprise. 
The  Romans,  not  satisfied  with  all  the  appliances  of  a 
luxurious  life  furnished  by  the  wealth  and  productive- 
ness of  the  cities  on  the  Mediterranean,  extended  their 
covetous  desires  to  farthest  India.  From  the  time  of 
Solomon  that  vast  country  had  been  regarded  as  the 
source  of  fabulous  riches  of  a  kind  produced  only 
within  its  own  borders. 

To  reach  this  El  Dorado  the  Romans  of  the  Empire 
established  no  less  than  three  routes.  The  first  was  by 
way  of  Alexandria  and  the  Nile,  thence  across  the  Isth- 
mus to  the  Red  Sea,  and  thence  down  the  coast  of  Mal- 
abar ;  the  second,  through  Syria  by  way  of  the  famous 
city  of  Palmyra  to  the  Persian  Gulf;  and  the  third,  by 
way  of  the  Black  and  Caspian  Seas  and  the  river  Oxus. 
By  these  three  routes  the  Romans  received  from  India 
pearls  and  other  precious  stones,  spikenard,  myrrh,  frank- 
incense, silk,  spices,  precious  marbles,  slaves,  women's 
dresses,  girdlas,  etc.  So  immense  was  the  demand,  not 
of  course  in  the  city  of  Rome  only,  but  among  the 
wealthy  in  the  Roman  provinces  also,  for  these  articles, 

36 


422  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

and  so  high  was  their  cost,  that  although  the  wines  of 
Italy  and  Asia  Minor,  metals,  arms,  cloths,  and  the  like, 
were  exchanged  for  them,  yet  it  is  estimated  by  no  less 
an  authority  than  Pliny  the  Younger  that  besides  all 
these  things  the  amount  of  money  sent  by  Rome  to  India 
for  their  purchase  amounted  yearly  to  fifty  millions  of 
sestertia  (about  two  millions  of  dollars).  The  Mediter- 
ranean Sea,  from  the  Gates  of  Hercules  to  the  Bosphorus, 
continued  as  long  as  the  Roman  rule  lasted  what  it  had 
been  in  the  time  of  its  predecessors,  the  Phoanicians,  the 
Carthaginians,  and  the  Greeks,  the  highway  of  com- 
merce and  the  true  road  to  a  more  complete  civilization. 
Roman  merchants  transported  from  Spain  the  metals 
with  which  that  country  abounded,  and  poured  through 
Marseilles,  an  ancient  Greek  colony,  that  stream  of 
trade  which  fertilized  all  the  cities  of  Southern  Gaul  and 
gave  them  those  monuments  of  civilization  which  even 
now  in  their  ruin  attest  the  Roman  power.  It  is  not 
usual  to  regard  the  Romans  as  a  commercial  people,  and 
certainly,  as  I  have  said,  the  class  engaged  in  trade  was 
not  held  in  honor  in  the  Imperial  city ;  yet  of  the  two 
master-passions  of  the  human  mind,  the  love  of  gain 
and  the  love  of  war,  it  is  hard  to  say  which  had  more 
to  do  with  extending  the  permanent  influence  of  Rome 
in  the  world. 

We  come  then  to  the  Middle  Age,  the  age  of  con- 
trasts, so  utterly  unlike  that  which  had  gone  before  and 
that  which  succeeded  it;  when  commerce,  external  and 
internal,  had  perished  in  the  invasions;  when  the  routes 


REVIVAL    OF  COMMERCE.  423 

by  sea  and  land  were  forsaken  and  wellnigh  forgotten ; 
when,  in  consequence  of  the  theories  of  the  Church, 
nothing  was  done  to  encourage  peaceful  intercourse  with 
foreign  countries ;  when  immobility,  isolation,  and,  as  a 
result,  barbarism,  took  the  place  of  enterprise,  free  com- 
mercial intercourse,  and  the  civilization  which  had  been 
attendant  upon  them.  There  can  be  no  more  striking 
picture  of  the  darkness  and  terror  of  those  days  than 
this  utter  cessation  of  those  relations  of  men  with  their 
neighbors  which  had  been  created  and  stimulated  in  the 
days  of  antiquity  by  the  love  of  gain.  Such  a  condi- 
tion could  not  be  lasting,  for,  had  it  been,  the  life  of 
European  society  would  have  been  degraded  to  that  of 
savages ;  but  several  centuries  passed  before  there  were 
signs  of  revival. 

The  dawn  at  last  appeared  on  the  borders  of  that 
Mediterranean  Sea  which  had  witnessed  the  decline  of 
that  commerce  of  which  it  had  been  the  principal  means 
of  communication  in  the  days  of  its  glory.  The  causes 
which  led  to  the  founding  of  Venice  are  well  known. 
A  few  inhabitants  of  the  towns  on  the  mainland  of 
Italy,  in  order  to  save  their  property  and  their  lives 
from  Attila  and  his  Huns,  took  refuge  in  the  marshy 
islands  which  are  found  at  the  mouths  of  the  rivers 
Brenta  and  Adige.  There  the  barbarians,  having  no 
vessels,  could  not  molest  them,  and  there,  deprived  of 
all  other  means  of  gaining  a  livelihood,  they  began  in  a 
feeble  way  a  commerce  which  gradually  extended  from 
one  end  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea  to  the  other,  and  made 


424  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

Venice  the  richest  and  one  of  the  most  powerful  States 
in  Europe  during  the  Middle  Age,  because  she  was  the 
most  commercial.  At  the  other  end  of  the  Italian  pen- 
insula, Naples  and  Amalfi,  towns  which  seem  to  have 
been  practically  independent  in  their  government  of  the 
Greek  Empire,  of  which  they  were  the  last  relics  in 
Italy,  still  kept  up  by  means  of  a  large  fleet,  to  their 
own  great  profit  and  advantage,  their  commercial  rela- 
tions with  the  East.  Pisa  and  Genoa  emulated  their 
example,  and  the  commerce  they  carried  on  with  Egypt, 
Syria,  Constantinople,  and  the  ports  of  the  Black  Sea 
not  only  enriched  them,  but  filled  the  interior  towns 
of  Italy  with  Oriental  products,  stimulating  the  taste 
for  that  peculiar  culture,  refinement,  and  luxury  which 
precious  books,  precious  stones,  and  precious  works  of 
art  never  fail  to  foster.  All  this,  of  course,  was  the 
work  of  centuries;  but  it  went  on  unceasingly,  gradu- 
ally melting  the  rugged  natures  of  the  conquerors  of 
Europe  wherever  it  could  reach  them,  as  the  warm 
winds  of  the  South  the  snows  of  winter. 

Every  movement  of  commerce  in  those  days  by  the 
cities  on  the  Mediterranean  was  a  step  forward  in  civili- 
zation. Nor  must  we  suppose  that  this  influence  was 
confined  to  Italy.  Three  great  transalpine  routes  were 
established,  leading  from  the  South  to  the  North  of 
Europe,  which  were  made  use  of  as  soon  as  the  mer- 
chant had  reasonable  security  for  the  safe  transportation 
over  them  of  his  merchandise  which  came  from  the  East. 
These  consisted  chiefly  of  articles  of  luxury,  and  were 


TRAFFIC  OF  JHE  ITALIAN  TOWNS.      425 

soon  sought  after  with  so  much  avidity  by  the  rude  pop- 
ulation of  Germany  that  the  trade  became  a  lasting 
and  most  profitable  one.  Two  of  these  routes  followed 
the  course  of  the  rivers  Rhine  and  Danube,  the  one 
reaching  the  extreme  north  and  the  other  the  centre  of 
Germany,  and  the  third  passing  through  the  country 
from  the  foot  of  the  Alps  to  the  Baltic  northeasterly. 

On  these  three  routes  are  to  be  found  the  most  famous 
historical  cities  of  Germany :  they  were  the  true,  almost 
the  only,  centres  of  civilization  in  transalpine  Europe 
in  the  Middle  Age,  and  they  were  made  so  because  they 
were  the  entrepots  of  commerce  between  the  East  and 
the  West.  All  this  was,  directly  or  indirectly,  the 
work  of  the  traffic  on  the  Mediterranean  kept  up  by 
the  Italian  cities  I  have  named. 

While  the  rest  of  Europe  was  in  a  state  of  stagna- 
tion, we  should  not  forget  that  a  great  deal  of  the 
prodigious  activity  of  these  towns  was  owing  to  their 
having  been  self-governing.  They  were,  therefore,  able 
to  adopt  and  carry  out  a  policy  suited  to  their  own 
peculiar  needs  and  position,  and  that  policy  was  neces- 
sarily, in  the  confusion  of  the  times,  exclusively  a  com- 
mercial one.  From  the  tenth  century  their  ambition 
was,  in  true  commercial  spirit,  to  monopolize  the  trade 
of  the  Mediterranean,  carrying  on  the  business  not  for 
their  own  account  only,  but  also  for  that  of  all  their 
neighbors.  The  Venetian  policy  was,  while  maintaining 
with  the  greatest  care  the  independence  of  the  republic, 
to  keep  on  good  terms  with  the  two  opposite  powers,  the 

86* 


426  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

Byzantine  Emperors  and  the  Emperors  of  the  West, — a 
task  in  the  fulfilment  of  which  even  their  extraordinary 
skill  sometimes  failed.  They  succeeded  more  frequently 
by  adopting  a  policy  the  basis  of  which  at  all  times 
was  the  protection  of  their  commercial  interests.  Their 
system,  which  was  regarded  in  the  Middle  Age  as  a 
model  of  practical  wisdom,  was  imitated  by  the  other 
Italian  commercial  cities,  and  the  result  was  that  they 
became  not  only  the  providers  of  the  wants  of  the 
world,  but  also  set  the  fashions  in  all  matters  of  taste 
and  luxury  to  the  rest  of  Europe,  little  considering, 
doubtless,  that,  while  their  sole  object  was  to  make 
money  for  themselves,  they  were  unconsciously  giving 
a  characteristic  tone  to  the  general  life  of  the  time. 

There  are  many  aspects  in  which  the  influence  of  the 
Crusades  may  be  viewed,  some  of  which  we  have  already 
considered ;  but  the  permanent  result,  about  which  there 
can  be  no  dispute,  was  the  change  produced  by  them  in 
the  condition  of  the  world  by  the  increased  intercourse 
between  the  East  and  the  West  to  which  they  gave  rise. 
When  we  remember  that  commerce,  before  the  discovery 
of  America,  meant  simply  an  exchange  of  commodities 
between  the  East  and  the  West,— that  is,  between  Asia 
and  Europe, — and  that  intercourse,  and  especially  com- 
mercial intercourse,  between  the  people  of  these  two 
different  portions  of  the  world  was  denounced  by  the 
Church  as  a  crime  because  it  regarded  the  Orientals  as 
Infidels,  it  is  not  difficult  to  understand  that  wonderful 
changes  must  have  been  produced  by  any  shock  which 


COMMERCE  AND    THE   CRUSADES.      427 

Broke  up  this  practice  of  exclusion.  A  curious  and  most 
unexpected  result  of  the  crusading  expeditions  should  be 
noted.  They  were  undertaken  with  the  hope  of  making 
the  line  dividing  the  Christian  and  the  Infidel  broader 
and  deeper;  but  the  intercourse  of  those  engaged  on  both 
sides,  forced  as  it  was,  produced  a  directly  opposite  result, 
and  made  those  widely-separated  races  respect  each  other 
more  and  more  as  they  came  to  know  each  other  better. 
It  is  amusing  'to  read  in  contemporaneous  accounts  how 
each  party  regarded  the  other  before  they  met  as  savages, 
or  as  worse,  devils  incarnate.  It  was  long  before  the 
cultivated,  polished,  and  luxurious  Mussulmans  could 
look  upon  the  Crusaders  in  any  other  light  than  that 
in  which  the  Romans  had  regarded  the  rude  hordes  of 
Attila,  that  is,  as  the  mere  offscouring  of  the  earth ; 
and  so  it  is  wonderful  to  observe  how  slow  the  soldiers 
of  the  Cross,  with  their  lofty  conception  of  the  charac- 
ter of  the  Christian  knight,  were  to  recognize  in  Saladin 
a  far  truer  and  nobler  knight  than  their  own  leaders, 
Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  and  Philip  Augustus. 

When  the  Crusades  began,  the  cities  of  Asia  Minor 
were  still  the  seats  of  wealth  and  luxury,  which,  indeed, 
they  had  been  from  the  earliest  antiquity;  and,  whatever 
may  have  been  the  opinion  of  the  Crusaders  concerning 
the  religion  of  the  Infidels  whom  they  had  come  from 
the  ends  of  the  world  to  fight,  it  is  very  clear  that  they 
soon  became  alive  to  the  new  worldly  pleasures  with 
which  these  cities  tempted  them.  They  not  only  eagerly 
shared  in  these  pleasures,  but  their  tastes  became  so 


428  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

formed  by  what  they  saw  and  enjoyed  that  they  were 
not  satisfied  on  their  return  to  their  homes  to  resume 
their  former  rude  habits  of  life.  All  the  appliances  of 
luxurious  living  could  at  that  time  be  found  only  in  the 
East,  and  the  desire  to  gratify  the  new  taste  stimulated 
to  a  remarkable  degree  the  commercial  intercourse  be- 
tween the  East  and  the  West.  Whatever  other  countries 
of  Europe  lost  in  population  and  resources  by  the  Cru- 
sades, it  is  very  clear  that  these  expeditions  enriched 
Italy,  and  especially  made  the  fortunes  of  the  republics 
of  Venice,  Genoa,  and  Pisa.  These  maritime  cities, 
which  already  before  the  Crusades  possessed  an  exten- 
sive traffic,  gained  immensely  by  these  wars.  Their 
fleets  transported  many  to  the  Holy  Land,  and  Venice 
at  least,  with  characteristic  commercial  enterprise,  forced 
those  who  desired  to  embark  in  her  vessels  to  work  their 
passage,  so  to  speak,  by  insisting  upon  their  capturing, 
for  the  benefit  of  Venetian  commerce,  Zara,  on  the  Dal- 
matian coast,  and  Constantinople.  These  conquests  gave 
Venice  not  only  the  trade  of  Syria,  but  extensive  pos- 
sessions on  the  mainland  of  Greece  and  in  the  Archi- 
pelago. Thus,  while  religion  was  striving  to  sever  the 
population  of  the  East  from  the  West,  the  Infidel  from 
the  Christian,  commerce  was  binding  them  with  bonds 
which  were  not  loosened  until  the  discovery  of  the 
Western  world  removed  the  seat  of  trade  from  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean  to  those  of  the  Atlantic. 

Thus  much  for  the  maritime  commerce  of  the  South 
of    Europe.      Nearly  contemporaneous  with  it  was    a 


THE  HANSEATIC  LEAGUE.  429 

movement  of  the  same  sort,  but  better  organized,  in 
the  North,  under  the  direction  of  a  system  known  in 
mediaeval  history  as  the  Hanseatic  League.  The  word 
Hanse,  in  Norman  French,  signifies  an  association,  and 
this  association  was  formed  of  cities  and  princes  in 
Germany  and  the  North  of  Europe,  without  regard  to 
nationality,  who  desired  to  trade  with  each  other,  and 
whose  commercial  intercourse  could  not  be  carried  on 
safely  or  profitably  in  those  wild  times  without  the  pro- 
tection of  a  powerful  confederacy  such  as  this.  The 
rulers  of  the  petty  principalities  of  Germany  and  the 
North  not  only  did  nothing  to  encourage  industry  and 
protect  commerce  in  their  States,  but  often  despoiled 
both  merchants  and  artisans  of  their  wares  in  the  towns, 
or  robbed  them  while  they  were  transporting  them  from 
one  town  to  another.  The  towns  became  in  this  junc- 
ture, as  so  often,  the  true  saviors  of  society,  and  their 
efforts  to  protect  themselves  and  the  fruits  of  their 
industry,  no  doubt,  prevented  the  relapse  of  Germany 
to  its  original  savage  condition.  These  towns  for  our 
present  purpose  may  be  divided  into  two  classes,  the 
one  the  manufacturing,  the  other  the  commercial ;  the 
first,  of  course,  chiefly  in  the  interior,  and  the  latter  on 
the  coast,  principally,  in  the  beginning,  on  the  shores 
of  the  Baltic.  The  object  was,  first,  to  secure  the  safety 
of  the  merchandise  transported  from  one  of  these  in- 
terior towns  to  another  from  the  attacks  of  the  robber- 
knights,  who  were  accustomed  to  plunder  the  merchants 
travelling  on  the  great  routes  of  trade,  and  then,  by 


430  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 


means  of  the  ships  belonging  to  the  maritime  cities,  to 
transport  the  manufactures  of  these  towns  to  places  in 
the  North  where  they  might  be  exchanged  for  the  raw 
materials  and  products  so  abundant  in  that  portion  of 
the  world.  It  was  necessary,  such  was  the  lawlessness 
of  the  times,  that  these  ships  should  be  protected  from 
pirates,  just  as  those  who  journeyed  by  land  had  to  be 
guarded  from  the  attacks  of  the  robber-knights. 

The  energy,  vitality,  and  enterprise  which  the  pursuit 
of  industry  and  trade  gives  suggested  to  those  towns 
interested  associations  among  themselves  as  the  most 
efficient  means  of  mutual  protection.  By  the  year  1350 
seventy  of  the  principal  cities  of  Germany  and  Holland 
formed  a  commercial  confederacy  with  these  objects 
chiefly  in  view.  Nearly  a  hundred  years  before,  the 
Hanseatic  League,  originally  intended  for  the  protection 
of  trade  both  by  land  and  by  sea,  and  composed  of  cities 
on  both  shores  of  the  Baltic  and  of  the  neighboring 
towns  in  Poland  and  West  Russia,  had  been  formed.  All 
similar  associations  in  Germany  were  soon  merged  in  it. 
Of  this  league  the  famous  city  of  Lubeck  was  chief  and 
president.  There  were  assembled  within  its  walls  at 
stated  intervals  Diets,  composed  of  representatives  of  the 
towns  belonging  to  the  league,  which  enacted  laws  for  its 
government  and  settled  its  general  policy.  This  associa- 
tion, as  time  went  on  and  its  usefulness  became  apparent, 
grew  most  extended  in  its  operations  and  formidable 
in  its  power,  wielding  an  influence  not  inferior  to  that 
of  any  regular  government  in  Europe,  and  yet  outside 


POLICY  OF  THE  LEAGUE.  431 

and  independent  of  them  all, — a  curious  and  unique 
instance  in  mediaeval  history,  not  only  of  a  veritable 
imperium  in  imperlo,  but  also  of  representative  govern- 
ment long  maintained  and  completely  successful  in  the 
objects  it  had  in  view. 

The  object  of  this  association  was,  in  one  word,  com- 
mercial monopoly,  to  be  gained  by  acquiring  the  ex- 
clusive control  of  the  carrying  trade  of  the  North  of 
Europe.  Its  leaders  wished  to  secure  for  it  on  a  grand 
scale  in  the  commercial  aifairs  of  Europe  the  same  exclu- 
sive privileges  which  the  members  of  the  glides  or  trade 
corporations  possessed  in  the  towns.  We  may  form  some 
idea  of  its  power  when  we  consider  what  it  proposed  to  do, 
and  what  in  the  course  of  time  it  actually  accomplished. 
It  undertook  to  protect  its  members  from  oppression 
while  engaged  in  carrying  on  their  trade,  to  guarantee, 
by  armed  force  if  necessary,  the  security  of  all  the  com- 
mercial routes  which  the  members  might  pass  over,  to 
enforce  the  observance,  both  by  its  own  members  and 
by  the  strangers  with  whom  they  traded,  of  wise  com- 
mercial regulations,  and  to  extend  the  commerce  of  the 
association  as  widely  as  possible,  both  by  sea  and  by 
land.  For  these  purposes  the  Hanseatic  League  raised 
armies,  equipped  vessels  of  war,  made  treaties  and  alli- 
ances with  foreign  powers,  and,  in  short,  for  nearly  five 
centuries  exercised  all  the  functions  of  a  regular  govern- 
ment in  carrying  out  its  plans.  All  this  time,  be  it 
remembered,  it  was  entirely  independent  of  any  govern- 
ment or  country  in  Europe,  and  held  them  all  in  such 


432  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

subjection  by  virtue  of  its  monopoly  of  the  trade  of 
their  subjects  that  it  became  a  power  of  the  first  magni- 
tude in  the  settlement  of  the  general  European  policy. 

The  reason  at  the  bottom  of  all  this  was  a  very  simple, 
but  it  seems  to  us  now  a  very  singular  one.  It  was  this. 
In  those  days  no  country  in  the  North  of  Europe  had  a 
national  marine,  such  as  those  of  the  republics  on  the 
Mediterranean.  There  were  then  no  national  commercial 
interests,  such  as  now  form  the  basis  of  the  national 
policy  of  at  least  all  maritime  nations,  and  commerce 
seems  to  have  been  regarded  for  a  long  time  in  that  part 
of  the  world  as  affecting  the  important  interests  of  the 
population  hardly  more  than  we  should  be  by  a  change, 
for  instance,  in  the  methods  adopted  for  the  transporta- 
tion of  the  mails.  The  feudal  mind  was  never  able  to 
comprehend  the  far-reaching  effects  of  a  commercial 
policy,  and  of  course  never  dreamed  of  its  destiny  when 
commerce  should  become  king.  It  was  not,  in  short, 
regarded  as  a  national  concern  at  all.  It  existed  only, 
as  was  thought,  for  the  supply  of  wants  which  were 
looked  upon  as  mainly  artificial,  and  therefore  any 
agency  which  did  this  limited  work  well  was  considered 
all-sufficient. 

A  striking  illustration  of  the  indifference  during  the 
Middle  Age  to  commerce  as  an  affair  of  national  impor- 
tance and  as  a  source  of  national  wealth,  and  of  the  sud- 
den change  of  opinion  on  this  subject,  at  least  in  Eng- 
land, is  found  in  the  history  of  that  country  during  the 
reign  of  Edward  III.  As  is  well  known,  the  principal 


EDWAXD  III.  AND    THE  LEAGUE.       433 

agricultural  product  of  England  down  to  the  middle  of 
the  fourteenth  century  was  sheep's  wool.  This  wool  had 
long  been  shipped  to  the  manufacturing  towns  in  Flan- 
ders, where  it  was  woven  into  cloth  and  sent  back  to 
England,  together  with  whatever  else  of  Flemish  pro- 
duction its  value  would  buy.  This  sort  of  trade  had 
long  continued  in  England,  and  was  entirely  in  the 
hands  of  the  agents  of  the  Hanse,  who  had  their  gilde- 
hall  in  London,  and  whose  ships  carried  the  outward 
cargo  of  wool  and  brought  back  the  homeward  cargo  of 
manufactured  articles.  But  it  seems  to  have  struck  that 
most  sagacious  of  English  kings,  Edward  III.,  that  this 
was  a  process,  so  far  as  his  own  country  was  concerned, 
which  might  be  called  "burning  the  candle  at  both 
ends."  He  determined  to  stop  it.  He  was  without  ships 
suitable  for  such  a  trade,  and,  like  the  other  rulers  in  the 
North  of  Europe,  he  was  wholly  dependent  upon  the 
Hanse  for  the  conveyance  of  foreign  merchandise.  But 
this  did  not  deter  him,  and  he  issued  an  order  that  here- 
after no  wool  should  be  exported  from  the  kingdom,  and 
no  woollen  cloths  should  be  imported.  By  so  doing  he 
accomplished  three  things,  none  of  which  he  had  prob- 
ably anticipated.  1,  He  laid  the  foundation  of  manu- 
facturing industry  in  England;  2,  he  destroyed  utterly 
the  monopoly  of  English  commerce  by  the  Hanse ;  and, 
3,  he  substituted  for  it  the  English  mercantile  marine, 
thereby  creating  two  at  least  of  the  most  important  ele- 
ments in  the  greatness  and  wealth  of  modern  England. 
But  other  countries  in  the  North  of  Europe  were  not 

37 


434  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

strong  enough  to  secure  for  their  own  vessels  their  own 
carrying  trade  and  thus  make  themselves  independent 
of  the  Hanseatic  League.  For  more  than  two  centuries 
the  Hanse  maintained  its  supremacy  in  the  Northern 
seas,  and  kept  up  especially  an  active  trade  between  the 
manufacturing  towns  of  Flanders  and  those  in  Northern 
Germany  and  on  the  Baltic,  in  each  of  which  it  estab- 
lished a  comptoir,  or  factory,  managed  by  officers  of  the 
League,  and  from  which,  as  entrepdts,  the  goods  were 
distributed  to  places  in  the  most  remote  parts  of  Russia, 
Poland,  and  Sweden.  Notwithstanding  the  discomfiture 
of  the  League  in  England,  commerce  in  the  North  re- 
mained under  its  control,  for  without  its  aid,  in  the 
existing  condition  of  the  world,  its  pursuit  would  have 
been  wellnigh  impossible.  The  Hanse  took  advantage 
of  its  position  by  forcing  the  States  within  whose  ter- 
ritory were  situated  the  towns  with  which  it  traded  to 
make  treaties  with  it,  and  to  levy  upon  the  cargoes  trans- 
ported by  its  vessels  duties  so  much  lower  than  those 
exacted  from  others  that  it  soon  crushed  out  all  attempts 
at  rivalry.  This  system  of  commerce  prevailed  until 
the  discovery  of  America,  and  the  consequent  diversion 
of  trade  into  new  channels,  and  the  establishment  by 
the  Northern  powers  of  a  national  mercantile  marine 
with  special  privileges  and  exemptions.  The  Hanseatic 
League  had  outlived  its  usefulness ;  but  it  was  not  for- 
mally abolished  by  the  public  law  of  Europe  until  the 
peace  of  Westphalia,  in  1648,  when,  as  we  have  said,  the 
occasion  for  its  peculiar  service  had  long  passed  away. 


HUMANIZING  INFLUENCES.  435 

Of  course  the  commerce  of  the  North  produced  no 
such  sudden  and  extraordinary  effect  on  the  civilization 
of  Europe  as  that  of  the  Mediterranean  ;  yet  in  building 
up  towns  and  in  the  exchange  of  commodities  between 
them,  a  trade  stimulated  by  the  desires  of  people  of 
widely  diversified  wants,  it  not  only  settled  permanently 
the  industrial  status  of  Europe,  but  by  so  doing  laid  the 
foundation  of  a  general  policy,  since  adopted  by  all  her 
statesmen,  of  protecting  by  treaty  and  legislation  the  in- 
terests of  the  trading  and  laboring  classes  of  the  nation. 

There  were  various  humanizing  influences  incidental 
to  the  prosecution  of  mediaeval  commerce  which  are  suf- 
ficiently familiar,  but  which  perhaps  it  may  be  well  to 
recall  here,  because  their  influence  reached  into  far  later 
times.  There  was,  for  instance,  the  whole  system  of 
credit  and  banking  in  commercial  transactions,  which,  it 
is  true,  grew  out  of  the  necessities  of  the  case,  but  which 
was  not  only  wholly  out  of  harmony  with  the  general 
tendencies  of  the  Middle  Age  as  I  have  had  occasion  to 
describe  them,  but  in  direct  opposition  to  the  authority 
of  the  Church,  whose  uniform  testimony  was  that  the 
taking  of  interest  for  the  loan  of  money  was  a  high  crime. 
We  have  been  taught  to  believe  that  the  mediaeval  age 
was  pre-eminently  a  religious  age,  in  which  Church  au- 
thority was  supreme.  And  yet,  in  striking  opposition 
to  this  view,  we  find  that  when  two  motives  of  action, 
that  of  religion  and  that  of  gain,  were  set  before  large 
classes  of  men  in  those  days,  they  never  seem  to  have 
hesitated,  any  more  than  men  now  do,  to  risk  their  souls 


436  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

if  they  could  make  money.  They  did  this  whether 
they  were  driving  hard  bargains  with  the  Crusaders 
who  desired  to  be  helped  on  their  way  to  the  rescue  of 
the  Holy  Sepulchre,  or  whether  they  were  making  their 
fellow-Christians  pay,  in.  defiance  of  the  authority  of  the 
Church,  high  rates  of  usury. 

Another  great  modern  humanizing  principle — "the 
noblest  innovation,"  as  it  has  been  called,  "  of  modern 
times" — is  the  practice,  if  not  the  principle,  of  religious 
toleration ;  and  it  had  its  origin  in  the  intercourse  of 
the  medieval  traders.  There  is  a  universal  religion,  the 
obligations  of  which  are  recognized  alike  by  Jews,  Turks, 
Heretics,  and  Infidels,  and  that  is  one  based  upon  the 
principle  of  fair  and  honest  dealing  between  man  and 
man.  When  the  Christian  merchants  found  that  the 
followers  of  the  False  Prophet  paid  their  debts  punc- 
tually and  fulfilled  their  contracts  with  the  strictest 
honesty;  when  they  found  the  outcast  Jew  always  ready, 
as  a  capitalist,  to  assist  them  in  any  enterprise  which 
promised  gain  in  return  for  the  money  advanced ;  when 
traders  were  brought  into  daily  intercourse  with  those 
whose  religion  differed  from  their  own,  and  found  how 
many  ideas  they  had  in  common, — it  was  simply  impos- 
sible that  they  should  look  upon  and  treat  those  not  of 
their  religion  as  children  of  Satan,  such  as  the  Church 
represented  them.  Thus,  strange  to  say,  the  practice  of 
toleration  was  largely  due  to  the  most  selfish  of  human 
instincts, — the  love  of  gain. 

There  was  another  change  in  the  mediaeval  conception 


COMMERCE  AND  MODERN  HABITS.      437 

of  life  produced  by  commercial  intercourse  which  it  is 
important  to  notice.  The  ideal  of  a  perfect  life  in  those 
days  according  to  the  Christian  standard  was  poverty,  the 
monastic  life  being  regarded  as  the  highest  type  because 
it  was  ascetic.  Commerce  and  wealth  stimulated  the 
introduction  of  luxury,  and  habits  of  luxurious  living 
became  so  general  that  neither  the  denunciations  of  the 
Church  nor  the  sumptuary  laws  nor  the  statutes  of  Ap- 
parel enacted  by  the  State  could  do  anything,  for  a  time 
at  least,  to  check  the  wild  extravagance  of  fashion.  This 
was,  no  doubt,  an  evil  while  it  lasted ;  but  out  of  it  came 
in  the  end  great  good.  If  the  people  in  modern  times 
lead  more  cleanly,  decent  lives,  in  more  convenient  and 
comfortable  houses,  than  they  did  in  the  Middle  Age,  it 
is  due  in  a  great  measure  not  merely  to  the  increase  of 
wealth  in  itself,  but  to  the  higher  standard  of  living 
which  was  made  possible  by  the  introduction  into  Euro- 
pean life  of  many  things  which  are  now  objects  of  the 
first  necessity,  but  which  in  the  rude  life  of  the  past 
were  thought  by  the  sober-minded  to  be  sinful  luxuries. 
So  we  owe  to  mediaeval  commerce  the  birth  of  that 
benign  system  of  international  law  which  to-day  is 
the  only  force  that  keeps  each  nation  in  its  appointed 
sphere  and  enables  it  to  do  its  appointed  work  without 
clashing  with  its  neighbors.  As  there  were  no  inter- 
national relations  in  the  mediaeval  era,  the  stranger,  out 
of  the  jurisdiction  of  his  immediate  petty  sovereign,  was 
in  the  fullest  sense  an  enemy  and  treated  as  such.  There 
was  one  exception  to  this  rule  which  painfully  marks 

37* 


438  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  prevalence  of  class  distinctions  at  that  time.  The 
noble,  by  virtue  of  his  nobility,  was  the  citizen  of  the 
Christian  world.  He  claimed  in  all  countries  equal 
privileges,  and  they  were  accorded  to  him  without  hesi- 
tation. But  the  trader  or  the  merchant,  whose  calling 
took  him  sometimes  through  a  half-dozen  miserable  little 
principalities  in  as  many  days,  had  no  such  rights.  If 
he  were  shipwrecked,  his  merchandise,  if  it  were  driven 
ashore  by  the  waves,  as  well  as  the  lives  of  those  of  the 
crew  who  might  be  saved,  were  by  law  at  the  mercy  of 
the  lord  who  owned  the  land  upon  which  they  were 
washed  up.  This  was  his  feudal  right ;  and  in  accord- 
ance with  it  the  property  was  confiscated  to  his  use  and 
the  crew  became  his  slaves. 

There  was  another  practice  in  the  mediaeval  era  which 
may  be  mentioned  to  show  not  merely  how  foreign  the 
spirit  of  the  time  was  to  the  encouragement  of  commerce, 
but  also  to  show  what  we  have  escaped  from  by  the 
gradual  growth  of  commercial  ideas.  This  practice  was 
founded  upon  what  was  called  le  droit  d'aubaine,  by 
which  any  stranger  dying  out  of  his  own  country  was 
prohibited  from  making  a  will,  and  by  which  no  stranger 
was  permitted  to  receive  a  legacy  from  a  subject  of  an- 
other jurisdiction.  In  either  case  an  attempt  to  transfer 
the  property  worked  its  forfeiture,  and  it  was  confiscated 
to  the  lord  of  the  fee.  This  was  an  extreme  application  of 
the  principle  of  antiquity  that  no  one  who  had  not  civil 
rights,  that  is,  who  was  not  a  member  of  the  particular 
city  or  people  among  whom  he  lived,  could  lawfully 


INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS.  439 

transmit  property  in  any  way.  When  we  remember 
that  there  were  no  nations  in  the  mediaeval  era  in  our 
sense,  and  that  Europe  was  divided  into  a  multitude  of 
petty  feudal  sovereignties,  each  of  which  enforced  this 
rule  as  against  the  other,  we  may  form  some  idea  of 
its  destructiveness  to  that  commerce  whose  existence  is 
dependent  upon  the  trust  that  contracts  made  in  good 
faith  shall  never  depend  for  their  fulfilment  on  the 
contingencies  of  human  life.  This  was  one  of  the  first 
subjects  which  occupied  the  attention  of  that  diplomacy 
which  grew  out  of  the  intercourse  created  by  commerce. 
Shortly  after  the  Crusades,  Consuls  were  appointed  by 
those  republics  trading  in  the  cities  of  the  East,  to  reside 
there  and  watch  over  the  interests  of  their  countrymen 
who  might  be  engaged  in  trade,  and  shortly  after,  or 
rather  more  than  a  century  later,  Ambassadors,  one  of 
whose  functions,  at  least,  was  to  look  after  similar  in- 
terests, were  accredited  by  the  sovereigns  of  Europe  to 
those  countries  with  which  their  intercourse  was  most 
frequent. 


CHAPTEE    XVI. 

THE   ERA   OF   SECULARIZATION. 

I  HAVE  endeavored  by  the  illustrations  which  I  have 
given  of  the  life  and  history  of  the  Middle  Age  to  make 
it  clear  that  the  most  characteristic  and  prominent  feature 
of  that  life  was  that  which  made  it  the  era  of  authority, 
in  special  and  striking  contrast  with  the  era  of  individ- 
ualism, or  that  social  condition  in  which  the  exercise  of 
private  judgment  is  regarded  as  the  true  rule  of  human 
action.  It  is  hard  for  us  to  conceive,  at  the  present  day, 
when  this  right  of  private  judgment  is  universally  recog- 
nized, how  far  the  opposite  principle  of  authority  was 
carried  in  mediaeval  times ;  yet  we  must  try  and  gain 
some  adequate  conception  of  it,  for  thus  only  can  we 
understand  the  basis  not  only  of  mediaeval  life,  but  of 
our  own,  as  well  as  the  cause  for  the  striking  difference 
between  them.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  the 
contrast  between  the  two  eras  is  due  perhaps  quite  as 
much  to  the  controlling  influence  of  one  or  the  other  of 
these  two  opposite  principles  as  to  any  other  cause. 

In  discussing  the  historical  life  of  Middle  Age  insti- 
tutions I  have  given  examples  of  the  universal  and 
unchecked  force  of  this  principle  of  authority, — how 
it  extended  not  merely  to  the  control  of  the  actions  of 

men,  but  moulded  the  expression  of  all  their  thoughts 
440 


AUTHORITY  AND  INDIVIDUALISM.       441 


and  opinions ;  how  it  formed  the  standard  of  the  conduct 
of  their  lives ;  how  for  such  purposes  its  recognition  was 
not  a  matter  of  choice,  like  that  of  respect  for  public 
opinion  in  this  day,  for  instance,  against  which  men, 
if  they  be  brave  and  honest  enough,  may  sometimes 
fight,  but  a  firm  belief  in  a  visible  and  omnipresent 
power  possessing  all  the  machinery  and  appliances  of  a 
thoroughly  organized  government  for  the  purpose  of 
enforcing  its  authority.  We  come  now  to  consider  how 
this  era  of  authority  thus  apparently  resting  perma- 
nently upon  a  universally  recognized  basis  was  gradu- 
ally supplanted  by  the  great  force  of  modern  times, — 
individualism. 

The  power  which  shaped  men's  thoughts  and  lives 
in  the  Middle  Age  was,  as  I  have  explained,  vested  in 
the  Church,  and  its  ideal  conception  of  human  life  was 
to  make  this  world  the  city  of  God,  built  up  under  its 
authority  and  guidance.  Above  all  things  in  the  Middle 
Age  men  sought  to  be  good  Christians.  The  claim  of  the 
Church's  jurisdiction  extended  to  the  whole  of  human  life, 
— not  merely  to  a  man's  acts,  but  to  his  opinions,  and  not 
merely  to  his  religious  opinions,  but  to  his  opinions  on 
every  subject  of  human  inquiry  and  interest,  however 
remote  some  of  these  subjects  may  appear  to  us  to  have 
been  from  the  sphere  of  theology.  For  more  than  six 
centuries,  as  I  have  explained,  the  Church  was  the  only 
tribunal  of  opinion  recognized  in  Western  Europe  on  all 
subjects,  Divine  and  human.  Its  decrees  were  not  always 
obeyed,  but  its  jurisdiction  was  never  questioned.  Let 


442  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY, 

us  consider  for  a  moment  the  extent  of  its  power  outside 
of  the  theological  domain  proper.  A  life  of  poverty, 
for  instance,  was  the  highest  form  of  life  known  to  the 
Church,  and  was  therefore  so  recognized  by  the  people 
in  the  Middle  Age.  But  what  did  this  conception  of 
life  involve?  Industry  and  commerce,  the  most  fruitful 
of  all  the  sources  of  civilization  in  modern  times,  had  but 
a  stunted  growth,  as  has  been  seen,  during  the  larger  por- 
tion of  the  mediaeval  era.  Not  only  were  the  rewards  of 
industry,  which  now  stimulate  human  activity  so  strongly, 
then  regarded  as  objects  wholly  undeserving  of  the  /eal 
and  energy  of  the  true  Christian,  but  the  means  also  by 
which  such  results  are  reached  in  modern  times,  such  as 
the  borrowing  of  money  on  interest,  and  commercial  in- 
tercourse with  those  who  were  not  Christians,  were  posi- 
tively forbidden  by  the  Church  as  highly  sinful  acts. 

So,  in  regard  to  the  sciences,  all  original  investigation 
was  prohibited  by  the  Church,  not  because  the  Church 
was  opposed  to  investigation  of  anything  which  in  itself 
might  be  considered  doubtful,  but  because  all  questions 
of  science,  as  well  as  those  of  morals  and  divinity,  were 
supposed  to  have  been  settled  by  the  authoritative  in- 
terpretation by  the  Church  of  statements  found  in  the 
Bible.  The  earth's  cosmogony  was  thought  to  be  ex- 
plained in  that  book  as  fully  as  the  plan  of  redemp- 
tion. Thus,  the  world  could  not  move,  because  Joshua 
had  commanded  the  sun  to  stand  still ;  it  could  not  be 
round,  because  the  Bible  was  supposed  to  declare  that  it 
was  flat ;  and  the  true  object  of  maritime  expeditions,  if 


CHANGE  IN  MEDIAEVAL  IDEAS.          443 

they  were  made  at  all,  should  be  not  to  enlarge  the  do- 
minions of  existing  kings,  or  to  increase  the  means  of 
supplying  the  wants  of  their  subjects,  but  to  convert  the 
savages  that  might  be  found  in  the  new  countries,  and 
make  them  good  Christians.  And  so  with  everything 
which  is  called  in  modern  times  science.  It  was  not 
the  Church's  external  force  or  pressure,  at  least  in  the 
earlier  times,  which  indisposed  men  to  investigate  the 
forces  of  nature,  but  the  mental  atmosphere  in  which 
they  lived, — the  profound  conviction  which  had  grown 
with  all  their .  experience  of  life  that  the  discussion  of 
such  problems  was  needless,  because  the  Church,  whose 
authority  all  recognized,  had  settled  and  decided  them. 

All  this  was  destined  to  pass  away;  and  I  propose 
to  consider  some  of  the  earlier  steps  in  this  process  of 
change.  It  is  usual  to  ascribe  that  great  change  which 
took  place  in  Europe  by  which  the  mediaeval  era  was 
brought  to  a  close,  to  a  general  revolt  of  reason  against 
authority,  to  a  universal  protest  of  the  human  conscience 
in  favor  of  the  right  of  private  judgment  against  what 
are  called  the  tyrannical  usurpations  of  the  Church. 
But  this  seems  to  me  an  inversion  of  the  historical  order. 
Men  do  not  revolt  against  any  system  which  has  gov- 
erned them  for  ages  simply  because  of  philosophical  objec- 
tions to  that  system.  The  first  step  is  the  one  which  they 
take  when  they  feel  keenly  its  practical  inconveniences 
or  grievances;  this  breeds  discontent  and  opposition; 
and  then  it  is  time  enough  to  seek  for  reasons  to  justify 
their  desire  for  change,  and  to  adopt  measures  to  bring 


444  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

it  about.  This  is  the  course  of  all  revolutions;  and  it  was 
the  course  of  that  in  which  the  revival  of  learning  and 
the  Reformation  were  the  last  and  not  the  first  steps. 

The  first  symptom  of  the  discontent  which  was  fast 
growing  in  Europe  in  the  fifteenth  century  with  the  all- 
pervading  authority  of  the  Church  was,  in  general  terms, 
restlessness.  People  were  growing  tired  of  the  restraints 
which  were  imposed  not  so  much  on  their  opinions  as 
upon  their  ordinary  course  of  life.  Men  became  more 
worldly  because,  as  time  went  on,  the  world  spread  out 
before  them  irresistible  temptations  which  had  never 
been  presented  to  their  fathers.  They  grew  less  Chris- 
tian in  the  Church's  sense;  that  is,  they  gradually  ceased 
to  ascribe  to  the  Church's  typical  virtues  of  poverty, 
chastity,  and  obedience  that  paramount  importance  which 
they  had  held  in  the  control  of  human  life  in  earlier 
days.  They  were  none  the  less  devoted  sons  of  the 
Church  and  stanch  advocates  of  its  authority.  Ortho- 
doxy of  belief  and  outward  conformity  have  often  co- 
existed with  neglect  of  the  practical  duties  of  religion. 
They  felt  the  restraint  her  laws  imposed  upon  their 
desires  none  the  less,  however,  and  the  result  was  that 
when  they  attempted  to  escape  from  these  restraints  a 
strange  spectacle  was  presented  of  an  endeavor  to  har- 
monize their  own  self-indulgence  in  those  new  ways  of 
life  which  seemed  so  tempting  with  professions  of  obe- 
dience to  the  authority  of  the  Church.  The  truth  is, 
the  world  was  tired  of  the  restraints  which  the  Church 
had  imposed  upon  it,  just  as  it  had  become  tired  of  the 


THE  NATION  AND    THE   CHURCH.         445 

Crusades.  People  were  weary  with  the  practice  of  self- 
denial,  not  because  they  doubted  the  Church's  authority 
and  duty  to  enforce  it,  but  because  other  objects,  which 
were  not  consistent  with  a  self-denying  spirit,  became 
more  attractive  to  their  minds  and  claimed  their  atten- 
tion, such  as  love  of  adventure,  the  pursuit  of  riches,  and 
fondness  for  luxurious  living.  In  short,  from  a  variety 
of  causes,  the  era  of  secularization,  in  which  the  human 
side  of  man's  life  was  chiefly  regarded,  was  supplanting 
the  era  of  authority,  in  which  man's  destiny  in  his  future 
life  had  been  the  exclusive  preoccupation  of  all. 

Let  us  take  some  illustrations  from  instances  of  this 
change  of  mind  or  of  public  attention  in  Europe  towards 
the  close  of  the  mediaeval  era  proper,  and  we  can  then 
best  see  what  objects  were  substituted  for  the  previous 
exclusive  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  Church,  and 
why  their  pursuit  at  last  completely  overshadowed  the 
position  which  the  Church  had  formerly  occupied. 

Perhaps  the  first  great  subject  which  interested  in 
common  the  rulers  of  Europe,  who  may  be  considered 
the  representatives  of  the  public  opinion  of  the  time,  when 
the  bonds  of  the  Church's  discipline  were  felt  less  heavily 
by  them,  was  a  desire  to  build  up  in  their  respective 
countries  nations  in  our  modern  sense, — that  is,  to  estab- 
lish a  central  monarchical  authority  with  a  uniform  rule 
over  a  large  district  peopled  by  the  same  race.  To  do 
this  it  was  necessary  not  only  to  suppress  the  local  feudal 
sovereignties  among  whom  the  rule  of  the  land  and  its 
inhabitants  had  been  divided,  but  to  give  practical  shape 

38 


446  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

also  to  a  theory  of  exclusive  nationality  of  which  the 
Church  had  given  no  example  and  with  which  she  could 
have  no  sympathy.  The  extreme  outgrowth  of  this  sen- 
timent, it  may  be  said,  was  the  substitution  of  patriotism 
for  religion,  loyalty  to  the  State  for  faith  in  the  Church. 
The  Church  had  always  claimed  universal  sway,  not 
merely  from  the  nature  of  its  constitution,  of  which  the 
very  essence  was  a  common  recognition  of  the  equality  of 
all  mankind  in  its  eyes  and  their  obligation  of  obedience 
to  a  common  rule,  but  also  because,  with  its  usual  pre- 
science, it  foresaw  that  separate  national  kingdoms  might 
mean  in  the  end,  as  turned  out  to  be  the  case,  separate 
national  Churches, — a  condition  of  things  in  which  the 
unity  of  the  Church,  and  especially  the  claim  of  com- 
mon obedience  to  the  See  of  Rome,  might  be  seriously 
endangered.  The  Holy  Roman  Empire  was  founded  on 
this  essentially  anti-national  theory. 

But  the  Church  was  powerless  to  check  the  new-born 
ambition  of  the  kings  of  Europe  to  found  powerful 
nationalities  and  family  dynasties.  The  movement  was 
a  general  one,  and  its  execution  absorbed  much  of  the 
attention  heretofore  given  to  Church  questions,  and 
directed  the  thoughts  and  actions  of  those  who  then 
ruled  Europe  into  a  diiferent  if  not  an  opposite  channel. 
There  was  as  yet  no  open  hostility  to  the  Church ;  but 
a  national  policy  of  governing  meant  one  not  controlled 
by  Church  influence  or  authority.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
repeat  here  the  story  of  the  process  by  which  the  great 
fiefs  in  different  countries  in  Europe  were  gradually 


NA  TIONAL  POLICY  AND  AMBITION.      447 

annexed  to  the  crown.  It  has  been  seen  how  Louis  XI., 
in  France,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  by  various  means 
established  the  royal  authority  firmly  throughout  the 
kingdom  and  became  King  of  France  in  reality  as  well 
as  in  name;  how  the  power  of  the  English  nobility  was 
ruined  by  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  which  resulted  in 
making  Henry  VIII.  a  more  powerful  monarch  than 
any  of  his  predecessors;  how,  in  Spain,  the  various 
kingdoms  of  that  country  had  become  united  under  the 
sway  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  and  a  centralized  mon- 
archy had  been  founded  by  the  suppression  of  all  local 
jurisdictions,  as  well  of  the  nobles  as  of  the  towns ;  how 
even  in  Germany,  where  the  feudal  principle,  as  opposed 
to  that  of  centralization,  finally  prevailed,  large  states 
with  distinct  interests,  such  as  Prussia  and  Austria,  were 
created.  Everywhere  about  the  same  time  a  common 
sentiment,  the  desire  to  establish  distinct  and  powerful 
nationalities,  prevailed. 

The  nation,  or  the  king  as  representing  it, — national  or 
dynastic  interests,  in  short, — soon  occupied  that  foremost 
place  in  men's  minds  which  they  have  ever  since  held,  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  policy  which  had  previously  pre- 
vailed, of  maintaining  by  secular  means  the  authority  of 
the  Church.  The  creation  of  nationalities  in  the  modern 
sense  gave  rise  to  a  multitude  of  new  and  conflicting 
interests,  and  to  policies  for  promoting  them  essentially 
worldly  in  the  Church's  sense.  Their  harmonious  or- 
ganization was  a  task  of  the  most  difficult  and  delicate 
kind,  and  engrossed  the  exclusive  attention  of  the  best 


448  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

trained  men ;  and  in  the  execution  of  such  a  work  little 
or  no  aid  could  be  expected  from  the  theory  or  practice 
of  the  Church.  Indeed,  the  advancement  of  many  of 
those  interests  which  had  become  essential  to  the  nation's 
life,  the  chief  object  of  which  was  the  supply  of  needs 
mainly  of  a  selfish  and  material  kind,  was  inconsistent 
not  only  with  the  principle  upon  which  the  Church's 
authority  was  maintained,  but  also  with  that  conception 
of  the  true  ends  of  man's  life  which  had  been  character- 
istic of  the  medieval  era. 

Men's  tempers  were  not  changed,  at  least  consciously, 
but  the  aim  of  their  lives  was  totally  different  from, 
what  it  had  been.  The  rulers  of  Europe  were  quite  as 
warlike  in  the  twelfth  century  as  they  were  in  the  six- 
teenth, but  how  different  were  the  motives  which  guided 
them  !  There  were  no  national  wars  of  ambition  during 
the  mediaeval  era:  if  an  invasion  took  place  such  as  that 
of  France  by  England  (during  the  Hundred  Years'  War), 
it  was  to  support  a  claim,  as  in  the  case  of  Edward  III., 
by  inheritance,  and  not  to  extend  dominion  by  robbery. 
The  Church  (sometimes,  it  is  true,  by  making  very  fine 
and  subtle  distinctions)  never  recognized  the  lawfulness 
of  war  among  Christian  men,  except  as  an  appeal  to  God 
to  decide  the  right.  There  was  but  one  war,  or  one  form 
of  war,  which  the  Church  encouraged,  and  that  was  for 
the  defence  of  the  faith  and  the  extirpation  of  the  Infidel. 
But  that  reverence  and  obedience  to  the  Church's  au- 
thority which  had  moved  all  Europe,  by  the  one  common 
impulse  which  it  felt  during  the  mediaeval  era,  to  join  at 


EFFECT  OF  NATIONAL    WARS.  449 

the  Church's  command  in  an  effort  to  rescue  the  Holy 
Sepulchre  from  the  Infidel,  was  out  of  date  in  the 
middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  almost  as  much  as  it  is 
now.  It  was  not  because  men  had  ceased  to  love  war ; 
but  when  nations  became  developed  into  nationalities, 
with  a  powerful  national  organization,  they  fought  for 
different  objects  and  were  moved  by  different  impulses. 

The  Church  always  claimed  that  one  of  the  most 
important  objects  of  her  mission  on  earth  was  to  secure 
peace  and  order.  The  history  of  the  Middle  Age  would 
hardly  prove  that  she  had  been  successful  in  this  mis- 
sion; yet  it  is  a  significant  fact  that  no  sooner  had  the 
principle  of  nationalities  become  the  settled  policy  of 
Europe  in  place  of  that  of  Church  authority,  than,  for  a 
time  at  least,  confusion  and  anarchy  everywhere  prevailed. 
National  rivalries  were  excited,  and  national  wars — wars 
of  ambition  only,  of  which  the  desire  to  gratify  the  pride, 
to  advance  the  family,  or  to  extend  the  dominions  of 
the  rulers  of  the  principal  kingdoms,  was  the  moving 
impulse — became  for  centuries  the  normal  condition  of 
Europe.  It  is  hard  to  find  any  other  name  or  motive, 
for  instance,  for  such  wars  as  the  expedition  of  Charles 
VIII.  against  Naples,  or  for  the  interminable  conflict 
between  Charles  V.  and  Francis  L,  in  which  Henry 
VIII.  became  involved.  Still,  these  wars  were  the  off- 
spring of  a  national,  or  at  least  of  a  dynastic,  impulse,  and 
they  not  only  directed  men's  attention  to  objects  far  other 
than  those  which  the  Church  would  have  approved  or 

encouraged  in  the  day  when  it  was  the  dominant  power 

38* 


450  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

in  Europe,  but  they  formed  also  a  standard  by  which 
the  decline  of  that  power  may  be  measured. 

The  Church  itself  at  that  time,  strange  to  say,  or 
rather  its  visible  head,  the  Pope,  had  become  so  oblivious 
of  the  traditions  of  his  high  office  as  to  be  engaged 
in  wars  with  the  same  worldly  and  ambitious  ends  in 
view  as  his  fellow-sovereigns  in  Europe.  The  Popes 
set  a  bad  example  in  the  fifteenth  century  to  those  kings 
who  loved  war  and  who  were  striving  by  it  to  extend 
their  dominions  in  order  to  gratify  their  ambition  or 
to  aggrandize  their  families.  Towards  the  close  of  the 
Middle  Age,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  the  Popes  had 
ceased  to  rule  Europe  by  that  moral  power  which  had 
been  enthroned  in  the  persons  of  such  men  as  Gregory 
the  Great,  Hildebrand,  or  even  Innocent  III.  Their 
authority  as  heads  of  the  Church  had  not  only  sensibly 
declined,  for  reasons  which  I  have  fully  discussed  in 
previous  chapters,  but,  strange  to  say,  they  themselves 
seem  by  their  policy  to  have  recognized  the  altered  con- 
dition of  the  times.  Hence  they  appear  in  the  history 
of  the  fifteenth  century  as  Italian  princes,  with  the 
same  anxious  desire  to  provide  for  their  families,  to 
found  dynasties,  and  to  extend  their  territory,  as  moved 
in  those  days  the  other  rulers  of  Europe  in  Italy  and 
elsewhere,  and  no  longer  in  the  august  and  imposing 
form  of  God's  vicegerents  on  earth.  Sixtus  IV.,  In- 
nocent VIII.,  Alexander  VI.,  do  not  seem  a  whit  less 
worldly,  or  less  moved  by  worldly  ambition  and  policy, 
than  those  kings  of  Europe  who  were  then  striving  to 


POSITION  OF  THE  POPES.  451 

consolidate  a  power  founded  on  purely  selfish  and 
dynastic  interests. 

The  Popes  in  those  days  seem  to  have  been  regarded 
by  their  brother  potentates  as  quite  on  a  level  with  them, 
— that  is,  simply  as  rivals  in  pursuit  of  the  same  earthly 
objects.  Hence  one  of  the  signs  of  the  decadence  of 
the  papal  authority  was  the  readiness  with  which  the 
Pope's  territory  was  invaded  by  men  calling  themselves 
Catholics,  whenever  a  policy  of  conquest  adopted  by  any 
European  power  made  it  convenient  to  do  so.  In  former 
ages  and  under  the  old  Popes  such  an  attempt  would 
have  been  regarded  as  sacrilegious,  and  excommunica- 
tion w/Juld  have  at  once  followed.  Charles  VIII.,  how- 
ever, marched  through  the  papal  territory  to  his  con- 
quest of  Naples  without  any  fear  of  the  Pope's  weapons, 
spiritual  or  carnal,  and  would  have  hesitated  as  little  to 
fight  against  the  troops  of  the  Church  as  against  those 
of  any  Italian  prince  who  might  oppose  his  advance. 
The  Popes  in  the  fifteenth  century  were  mixed  up  with 
all  the  intrigues  for  the  dismemberment  of  Italy  and 
with  the  claims  made  by  each  robber  for  a  share  of  the 
spoil ;  and  no  wonder,  when  the  august  functions  of 
the  head  of  the  Church  were  eclipsed  by  the  pretensions 
of  an  Italian  prince  seeking  only  to  extend  his  worldly 
power  and  to  found  a  family,  that  the  power  which  had 
so  long  ruled  the  destinies  of  Europe,  which  was,  after 
all,  a  power  on  a  moral  basis,  the  public  opinion  of 
Europe,  fast  crumbled  away. 

The  tradition  of  the  time  when  all  Europe  obeyed  one 


452  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

spiritual  head  still  survived,  but,  practically,  long  before 
the  Reformation  the  bond  of  the  old  allegiance  was 
broken.  Men  who  cherished  this  tradition  were  struck 
with  horror  when  they  heard  that  Francis  I.,  the  eldest 
son  of  the  Church,  as  he  proudly  called  himself,  had 
entered  into  an  alliance  with  the  Infidel  Turk  against 
Charles  V.,  the  Emperor  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire, — 
that  the  lilies  of  France  were  mingled  with  the  crescent 
of  the  Infidel  in  the  assault  upon  the  Christian  Empe- 
ror's stronghold  ;  but  what  must  have  been  their  dismay 
when  they  heard  that  this  very  Emperor,  who  theoreti- 
cally held  his  office  by  the  authority  of  the  Pope,  had 
not  only  besieged  Rome  with  an  army  of  German  Prot- 
estant landsknechts,  but  had  made  the  Pope  prisoner,  and 
that  he  had  at  last  been  crowned  Emperor  by  this  very 
Pope  on  condition  that  he  would  restore  his  family,  the 
Medici,  to  the  sovereignty  of  Florence !  Thus,  naturally 
and  necessarily,  the  restraints  of  the  era  of  authority 
became  gradually  loosened  by  the  attitude  which  the 
Popes  in  the  fifteenth  century,  who  had  been  the  heads  of 
the  system  enforcing  such  authority,  had  assumed.  It  is 
impossible,  it  seems  to  me,  to  overestimate  the  encourage- 
ment given  by  these  Popes  to  the  substitution  in  Europe 
of  the  worldly  and  secular  policy  of  the  nation  for  the 
spiritual  authority  of  the  Church  and  exclusive  devotion 
to  its  interests. 

But  besides  this  new  policy  of  nationalities,  with  its 
disintegrating  effect  upon  the  Church's  authority,  various 
other  tendencies,  all  leading  to  the  same  end,  that  of 


WORLDLINESS  AND  LUXURY.  453 

subverting  the  exclusive  authority  of  the  papal  system, 
combined  to  bring  the  mediaeval  era  to  a  close  and  to 
awaken  a  permanent  interest  in  a  totally  new  class  of 
subjects. 

Men  became  worldly  as  their  control  over  the  forces 
of  nature  increased,  and  asceticism  formed  no  longer  the 
ideal  conception  of  life.  Wherever  there  was  commerce, 
in  Italy,  in  Flanders,  in  the  towns  of  Germany,  the  new 
lite  penetrated.  The  great  objects  of  men,  as  they  grew 
richer,  were  to  increase  steadily  the  share  of  comfort 
accessible  to  all,  to  stimulate  man's  intellectual  forces  so 
that  the  fruit  of  utility  in  its  widest  sense  should  be 
produced  in  the  amelioration  of  his  condition  and  in  the 
increase  of  his  knowledge.  Thus  they  sought  to  secure 
industrial  development,  lasting  tranquillity,  and  universal 
harmony,  to  provide  for  the  most  thorough  investigation 
of  all  subjects,  and  to  encourage  the  appreciation  of  all 
objects  of  human  and  natural  interest. 

The  luxury  and  magnificence  of  those  who  had  become 
rich  in  commercial  Europe  in  the  fifteenth  century  were 
in  as  great  contrast  with  that  poverty  of  the  preceding 
age,  which  the  Church  had  exalted  as  the  very  crown  of 
all  virtues,  as  with  the  senseless  vanity  which  is  so  char- 
acteristic of  many  rich  people  of  our  own  day.  Con- 
sider the  manner  in  which  the  Medici  employed  their 
wealth  (and  they  had  hosts  of  imitators  wherever  the 
new  tide  of  riches  had  reached  in  Europe),  and  mark 
the  contrast  between  them  and  the  mere  rich  man, 
both  mediaeval  and  modern.  We  should  not  forget  that 


454  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  era  of  the  highest  glory  of  scholars  in  Italy,  when 
their  title  to  consideration  had  almost  supplanted  that  of 
the  authority  which  had  so  long  ruled  the  world,  and 
when  they  were  honored  as  they  had  never  been  before 
since  the  days  of  Pericles,  was  the  era  in  which  great 
fortunes  were  first  made  in  that  country  by  trade.  The 
Medici's  private  fortune,  as  it  has  been  well  said,  was 
a  sort  of  public  treasury  freely  opened  to  learned  men. 
Scholars  were  in  those  days  the  companions,  friends,  and 
correspondents  of  true  merchant  princes  like  the  Medici 
in  every  part  of  Europe.  Costly  manuscripts  were  pro- 
cured from  the  distant  East  for  these  scholars;  their 
works  of  inestimable  value  were  published  at  the  expense 
of  the  merchants  who  had  found  out  the  noblest  use  of 
wealth.  Statues  and  medals  were  sought  for  in  the  most 
distant  regions  that  artists  might  study  and  imitate  them ; 
the  learned  were  honored  guests  at  the  tables  of  the 
wealthy ;  and  for  the  first  time  (alas !  perhaps  also  the 
last)  the  rich  man  and  the  scholar  met  on  those  terms? 
of  cordial  familiarity  and  sincere  friendship  which  re- 
moved any  sense  of  obligation  between  them,  standing 
as  they  did  on  a  footing  of  equality  as  man  to  man,  and 
without  a  thought  of  any  degrading  relation  as  of  an  in- 
ferior to  a  superior.  Such  was  the  representative  typi- 
cal man  in  Italy  on  the  eve  of  the  Renaissance,  or  the 
age  of  transition  from  the  mediaeval  to  the  modern  era. 
I  have  dwelt  upon  his  position  and  influence,  not  merely 
because  the  increase  of  the  power  of  scholars  marked  the 
decadence  of  the  Church's  authority,  but  also  because  the 


LIFE  IN  THE  LATER  MIDDLE  AGE.      455 

most  hopeful  era  in  European  history  was  that  in  which 
scholars  held  their  true  place. 

During  the  whole  of  the  fifteenth  century,  everywhere 
in  Europe  where  there  were  riches  and  that  prosperity 
whicli  riches  bring,  the  new  secular  spirit  was  rapidly 
developed.  In  Flanders,  which  was  then  a  hive  of 
industry,  we  notice  it,  just  as  we  do  in  Italy  at  the  same 
period.  "  Man  abandoned,"  says  M.  Taine,  "  the  ascetic 
and  ecclesiastical  regime  that  he  might  interest  himself 
in  nature  and  enjoy  life.  The  ancient  compression  was 
relaxed :  he  began  to  prize  strength,  health,  beauty,  and 
pleasure.  On  all  sides  we  see  the  mediaeval  spirit  under- 
going change  and  disintegration.  An  elegant  and  refined 
architecture,  very  different  from  the  early  Gothic,  con- 
verted stone  into  lace,  festooning  churches  with  pinna- 
cles, trefoils,  and  intricate  mullions,  so  that  they  became 
like  vast  caskets,  the  products  rather  of  fancy  than  of 
faith  as  of  old,  less  calculated  to  excite  piety  than 
wonder.  In  like  manner  chivalry,  which  in  its  earlier 
day  was  simply  the  highest  lay  service  of  the  Church, 
became  a  mere  parade.  In  Chaucer  and  in  Froissart  we 
are  spectators  of  the  knights  of  the  time, — their  pomp, 
their  tourneys,  their  processions,  and  their  banquets  (all 
the  marks  of  the  new  reign  of  frivolity  and  fashion), 
their  extravagant  and  overcharged  costumes,  the  crea- 
tions of  an  infatuated  and  licentious  imagination.  In 
short,  in  France,  in  Flanders,  and  in  Italy,  the  life  of 
the  court  and  the  princes  seems  a  perpetual  carnival." 

At   the    marriage   of    Philip    the   Good,   Duke   of 


45(3  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

Burgundy  (1420),  the  streets  of  Bruges  were  hung  with 
tapestry;  for  eight  days  and  eight  nights  a  stone  lion 
spurted  forth  Rhine  wine,  while  a  stone  stag  discharged 
Beaune  Burgundy,  and  at  meal-time  a  unicorn  poured 
out  rose-water  or  malvoisie.  "  On  the  entry  of  the 
Dauphin  into  the  city,"  says  Taiue,  "eight  hundred 
merchants  of  divers  nations  advanced  to  meet  him,  all 
clad  in  garments  of  silk  and  velvet.  At  another  cere- 
monial, the  duke  appears  with  a  saddle  and  bridle 
covered  with  precious  stones;  nine  pages  covered  with 
plumes  and  jewels  followed  him,  one  of  the  pages  bear- 
ing a  salad-bowl  of  the  value  of  one  hundred  thousand 
crowns,  the  duke  himself  wearing  jewels  estimated  in 
value  at  a  million."  And  yet  these  men,  in  the  midst 
of  all  this  pomp,  ostentation,  and  luxury,  claimed  to  be 
good  Christians,  and  especially  good  Catholics.  If  such 
was  the  case,  it  is  clear  that  obedience  to  the  authority 
of  the  Church,  which  during  the  Middle  Age  had  en- 
joined the  practice  of  asceticism  and  self-denial,  was  no 
longer  yielded,  just  as  the  virtues  which  had  been  re- 
garded of  old  as  typical  of  the  true  Christian  had  gone 
entirely  out  of  fashion.  While  men  professed  to  respect 
the  authority  of  the  Church,  and  claimed  to  be,  above 
all  else,  good  orthodox  Catholics,  the  whole  policy  of 
their  lives  was  such  as  to  destroy  the  faith  of  the  world 
both  in  the  Church's  authority  and  teachings. 

I  have  thus  endeavored  to  explain  how  the  two  classes 
of  men  who  have  ruled  Europe  in  modern  times — the 
scholars  and  the  rich — gradually  established  their  power 


INVENTIONS  AND  DISCOVERIES.          457 

in  the  fifteenth  century  in  formidable,  even  if  uncon- 
scious, antagonism  to  that  of  the  Church.  The  result 
was  a  complete  revolution  in  the  ruling  power  of  Eu- 
rope, no  less  real  because  it  was  silent  and  gradual,  and 
this  power,  becoming  first  the  strong  supporter  of  the 
national  as  opposed  to  the  ecclesiastical  policy  of  rule, 
and  afterwards  wholly  identified  with  it,  broke  up  the 
mediae val  conception  of  life  and  its  government. 

This  movement  was  accelerated  by  the  inventions  and 
maritime  discoveries  which,  before  the  fifteenth  century 
closed,  inspired  man  with  greater  confidence  in  himself, 
because  it  gave  him  fuller  control  over  the  forces  of 
nature  and  new  power  to  make  them  minister  to  his 
selfish  desires.  Certainly  it  needs  no  argument  to  show 
that  whatever  other  effect  upon  the  general  life  and 
ideas  of  the  time  may  have  been  produced  by  the 
general  use  of  gunpowder  in  war,  and  the  invention 
of  printing,  these  changes  must  have  very  sensibly 
affected  the  position  of  those  who  had  wielded  absolute 
authority  both  in  the  Church  and  the  State.  They 
meant  that  power  was  being  transferred  from  the  hands 
of  the  few  to  those  of  the  many;  they  were  potent 
agencies,  first,  to  instruct  the  many  as  to  the  desirable 
and  attractive  objects  of  life  which  were  within  their 
grasp,  and,  secondly,  to  teach  the  common  soldiers  of 
the  armies  for  the  first  time  in  history  that  they  had 
become  by  the  use  of  fire-arms  practically  equal  in  force 
to  those  whose  superiority  in  war,  as  it  was  conducted 
during  the  Middle  Age,  had  practically  overwhelmed 

39 


458  MEDIAEVAL  HISTORY. 

them.  We  may  be  quite  sure  that  the  sense  of  their 
importance  and  power,  and  of  the  possibilities  within 
their  reach,  thus  begotten  among  vast  multitudes  who 
for  many  generations  had  been  only  humble  and  sub- 
missive slaves  to  power,  as  embodied  in  the  Church  or 
the  monarch,  was  the  true  germ  of  all  the  revolts 
against  the  authority  of  both  which  have  characterized 
European  life  ever  since  the  sixteenth  century. 

The  fifteenth  century  was  fruitful  in  these  germs, 
which  grew  up  and  literally  choked  out  the  life  of  pre- 
ceding ages.  Not  only  were  men's  minds  enlarged  and 
stimulated  by  the  results  of  the  invention  of  printing, 
and  their  power  against  the  old  system  of  rule  immeas- 
urably increased  by  the  use  of  gunpowder  in  war,  but 
new  avenues  were  opened  about  the  same  time  to  the 
fresh  activity  and  energy  of  that  class  of  the  popula- 
tion, far  the  most  numerous  of  any,  whose  special  in- 
terests had  hitherto  been  wholly  neglected  by  those  who 
governed  them. 

Among  other  means  of  gaining  wealth  and  power 
which  tempted  the  new-born  spirit  of  enterprise  and  ad- 
venture, were  those  presented  by  the  great  maritime  dis- 
coveries of  the  fifteenth  and  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  These  stimulated  most  powerfully  the  imagi- 
nation of  men  who  had  just  become  conscious  of  their 
power.  The  discovery  of  America,  the  voyage  to  India 
by  way  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  the  circumnavi- 
gation of  the  globe  by  Magellan  and  his  voyage  through 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  were  events  of  momentous  magnitude, 


COMMERCIAL   INTERESTS.  459 

producing  quite  as  much  change  in  the  moral  and  in- 
tellectual life  of  Europe  as  in  the  geographical  notions 
which  then  prevailed.  It  was  not  merely  that  by  these 
discoveries  a  new  hemisphere  had  been  added  to  the  Old 
World,  but  that  the  new  interests  which  were  created  by 
these  discoveries  totally  changed  the  current  of  men's 
thoughts  and  opinions,  and  that,  these  interests  becoming, 
as  time  went  on,  more  and  more  important,  the  result  was 
that  from  that  day  to  this  the  relations  of  America  to 
Europe  have  had  a  preponderating  influence  in  deter- 
mining the  general  policy  of  the  government  of  the 
principal  nations  of  the  world.  Commercial  interests, 
industrial  progress,  colonial  dominion,  national  policy 
in  place  of  dynastic  or  family  aggrandizement, — these 
have  been  the  springs  of  government  in  modern  times; 
and  their  source  is  to  be  sought  in  the  discovery  of 
America  and  the  new  methods  of  reaching  the  East. 

The  Church's  authority,  at  least  as  an  infallible  ex- 
pounder of  scientific  truth,  was  not  strengthened  by  these 
discoveries.  Her  cosmogony,  by  which  she  taught  that 
the  earth  must  be  flat  and  that  there  could  be  no  anti- 
podes, was  proved,  of  course,  to  be  fallacious.  And  yet 
it  is  worthy  of  remark,  as  a  strange  mingling  of  the  old 
with  the  new,  and  as  showing  the  general  prevalence  of 
the  belief  that  the  great  object  of  maritime  discovery  was 
to  make  the  inhabitants  of  the  new  countries  Christians, 
that  as  soon  as  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  had  learned  from 
Columbus  the  success  of  his  voyage  they  made  a  formal 
application  to  the  Pope  (Alexander  VI.)  to  confirm  to 


460  MEDIEVAL  HISTORY. 

the  crown  of  Spain  the  countries  which  the  great  navi- 
gator had  discovered.  And  the  Pope,  exercising  in  the 
premises  the  power  of  the  chief  and  universal  bishop  of 
Christendom,  granted  the  application,  and  fixed  as  the 
boundary  between  the  dominions  of  Spain  and  Portugal 
a  line  drawn  from  the  Arctic  to  the  Antarctic  circle,  one 
hundred  leagues  west  of  the  Azores. 

Another  curious  illustration  of  this  mingling  of  the 
old  faith  with  the  new  desires  in  men's  minds  in  this  era 
is  found  in  the  famous  mediaeval  legend  of  Faust,  or  of 
the  Devil  and  Dr.  Faustus,  as  it  was  then  called.  The 
scholars  of  that  day  were  allured  by  the  secret  of  enjoy- 
ment as  the  source  of  strength  possessed  by  the  ancients, 
but  they  believed  that  they  could  recover  this  lost  treas- 
ure only  by  the  suicide  of  their  souls,  or,  what  was  equiv- 
alent to  it,  the  censure  of  the  Church.  "  So  great  was 
the  temptation,"  says  Mr.  Symonds,  "  that  Faustus  paid 
the  price.  After  imbibing  all  the  knowledge  of  his  age, 
he  sold  himself  to  the  Devil,  in  order  that  his  thirst  for 
experience  might  be  quenched  and  his  grasp  on  the  world 
strengthened.  His  first  use  of  this  dearly-bought  power 
was  to  make  blind  Homer  sing  to  him ;  Amphion  tunes 
his  harp  in  concert  with  Mephistopheles ;  Alexander  rises 
from  the  dead  at  his  behest,  with  all  his  legionaries ;  and 
Helen  is  given  to  him  for  a  bride.  The  story  of  Faustus 
is,  therefore,  a  parable  of  the  impotent  yearnings  of  the 
spirit  in  the  Middle  Age,  its  passionate  aspirations,  its 
fettered  curiosity,  combined  with  the  conscience-stricken 
desire  to  pluck  the  forbidden  fruit." 


POPULAR  DISCONTENT.  461 

Nor  was  this  restlessness  confined  to  rich  men,  or 
strong  men,  or  learned  men.  It  had  penetrated  deep  into 
the  minds  of  the  masses,  and  gave  token  that  a  new  era, 
that  of  an  aggressive  individualism,  was  approaching. 
This  was  manifested  in  different  ways  in  different  coun- 
tries of  Europe  as  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  each 
differed,  but  the  spirit  of  revolt  was  conspicuous  in  all 
during  the  fifteenth  century.  In  England  it  showed 
itself  by  a  popular  insurrection  against  the  social  evils 
of  the  time  in  Church  and  State,  which  is  known  in  his- 
tory as  Jack  Cade's  insurrection.  In  Germany,  where 
the  mass  of  the  peasants  were  so  utterly  crushed  by  the 
despotism  of  their  rulers  that  no  power  of  resistance 
was  left,  the  same  spirit  timidly  manifested  itself  in  the 
popular  literature  of  the  time.  The  most  remarkable 
books  in  Germany  of  that  time  are  the  Eulenspiegel 
(Owl-Glass)  and  Reinecke  Fuchs  (Reynard  the  Fox), 
and  they  both  have  this  common  characteristic,  hostility 
to  the  existing  social  condition,  and  especially  to  the 
abuses  of  the  Church.  The  fable  of  the  fox  is  made 
a  symbolical  representation  of  the  defects  and  vices  of 
human  society,  and  it  is  applied  to  the  conduct  of  dif- 
ferent classes  of  men,  which  is  brought  to  the  standard 
of  the  sober  good  sense  and  homely  morality  which  are 
asserted  to  be  the  only  true  source  of  the  claim  whereby 
kings  hold  their  crowns,  princes  their  lands,  and  all 
authorities  and  powers  their  due  value.  Such  were  some 
of  the  germs  which,  fermenting  in  the  popular  mind  in 

Germany,  grew  in  fifty  years  with  such  amazing  rapidity 

39* 


4G2  MEDIAEVAL   HISTORY. 

tliat  they  form  the  true  basis  of  the  Reformation  of 
Luther  aud  of  the  Peasants'  War. 

This  same  era  of  transition,  which  I  have  called  that 
of  secularization,  had  its  peculiar  characteristics  of  a  lit- 
erary kind  in  Italy,  as  elsewhere.  Ever  since  the  days 
of  the  Emperor  Frederick  II.,  the  free-thinking  king  of 
the  two  Sicilies,  in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
the  tendency  of  the  writings  of  those  who  moved  the 
popular  enthusiasm  was  against  the  principle  of  ab- 
solute authority  and  in  favor  of  individualism.  This 
tendency  showed  itself  by  constant  appeals  to  the  human 
side  of  man's  nature,  as  opposed  to  the  old  notion  that 
man's  position  in  this  world  was  chiefly  that  of  proba- 
tion or  preparation  for  a  better  state.  Petrarch  and 
Boccaccio,  the  great  poets  of  that  time,  have  been  called 
essentially  humanists.  Their  humanism  consisted  in  a 
new  and  vital  perception  of  the  dignity  of  man  as  a 
rational  being,  apart  from  theological  determinations, 
and  in  the  further  conception  that  classic  literature  alone 
displayed  human  nature  in  the  plenitude  of  intellectual 
and  moral  freedom.  Out  of  the  developments  of  these 
opinions  grew  the  Renaissance,  or  the  revival  of  learn- 
ing, which  was  simply  a  revolt  against  the  old  theories 
of  belief,  made  in  utter  disgust  with  their  barren  results, 
and  using  the  free  spirit  of  antiquity  as  an  instrument 
of  reform.  But  the  history  of  this  glorious  revival  and 
of  its  permanent  influence  upon  the  civilization  of 
Europe  does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  these  studies. 

I  have  thus  come  through  long  ages  of  night  and 


CONCLUSION.  4G3 


darkness  to  the  dawn  of  that  new  day,  in  the  splendor 
of  whose  meridian  we  now  live.  If  I  have  taught  any 
juster  appreciation  of  our  own  modern  life  by  showing 
how,  born  out  of  chaos,  it  has  been  nurtured  by  the 
gifts  of  the  noblest  intellects  of  all  time,  and  its  better 
part  preserved  amidst  the  strife  and  convulsions  of  ages, 
I  shall  have  accomplished  my  purpose. 


APPENDIX. 


BOOKS    OF    KEFERENCE. 

THE  following  is  a  list  of  books  of  authority,  in  French  and 
English,  concerning  the  history  of  the  Middle  Age.  It  might  be 
made  much  fuller ;  but  I  have  thought  it  best  to  give  the  titles  of 
those  books  only  which  may  be  found  in  any  well-furnished  public 
library. 

Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Koman  Empire. 

Milman,  History  of  Latin  Christianity. 

Merivale,  History  of  the  Komans. 

Champagny,  Etudes  sur  1'Empire  Komain. 

Arnold,  Koman  Provincial  Administration. 

Seeley,  Roman  Imperialism. 

Bureau  de  la  Malle,  Economic  politique  des  Remains. 

Ozanam,  Civilization  in  the  Fifth  Century. 

Laurent,  Etudes  sur  1'Histoire  de  I'Humamte'. 

Savigny,  Droit  Eomain. 

Guizot,  Civilization  in  France. 

Bryce,  Holy  Koman  Empire. 

Church,  Beginning  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Coulangcs,  La  Cite"  antique. 

Coulanges,  Institutions  politiques  de  la  France. 

Boissier,  La  Keligion  Romaine. 

Duruy,  Histoire  des  Remains. 

Hodgkin,  Italy  and  her  Invaders. 

Flint,  Philosophy  of  History. 

Ockley,  History  of  the  Saracens. 

Irving,  Life  of  Mahomet. 

465 


466  APPENDIX. 


Bos  worth  Smith,  Life  of  Mohammed. 

Clarke,  Ten  Great  Religions. 

Dollinger,  The  Gentile  and  the  Jew. 

Lea,  Studies  in  Church  History. 

Eenan,  Etudes. 

Renan,  L'Histoire  Eeligieuse. 

"Wallon,  Histoire  de  1'Esclavage. 

Conde,  Arabs  in  Spain. 

Coppee,  Conquest  of  Spain  by  the  Arabs. 

Finlay,  History  of  Greece. 

M'Lear,  Early  Missionaries. 

Thierry,  Recits  Merovingiens. 

Thierry,  Conquete  d'Angleterre. 

Amedee  Thierry,  Recits  de  1'Histoire  Romaine  au  Ve  Si&cle. 

Thierry,  Histoire  du  Tiers-Etat. 

Martin,  History  of  France. 

Mullinger,  Schools  under  Charlemagne. 

Boutaric,  La  France  sous  Philippe  le  Bel. 

Boutaric,  St.  Louis  et  Alphonse  de  Poitiers. 

Cantu,  Histoire  des  Italiens. 

Sismondi,  Histoire  des  Republiques  Italiens. 

Prescott,  Life  of  Philip  II. 

Freeman,  Norman  Conquest. 

Freeman,  Historical  Geography. 

Palgrave,  English  Commonwealth. 

Stubbs,  Constitutional  History  of  England. 

Hallam,  Middle  Ages. 

Pearson,  History  of  the  Middle  Age  in  England. 

Creasy,  History  of  the  Middle  Age  in  England. 

Green,  History  of  the  English  People. 

Knight,  History  of  England. 

Hook,  Archbishops  of  Canterbury. 

Maine,  Ancient  Law. 

Maine,  Early  History  of  Institutions. 

Maine,  Village  Communities. 


APPENDIX.  467 


Remusat,  Life  of  Anselm. 

Michaud,  Histoire  des  Croisades. 

Cherrier,  Histoire  des  Empereurs  de  la  Maison  de  Souabe. 

Coxe,  House  of  Austria. 

Schaff,  Church  History. 

Ranke,  History  of  the  Popes. 

Villemain,  Gregory  VII 

Villari,  Machiavelli. 

Villari,  Savonarola. 

Kington,  Life  of  Frederick  II. 

Kohlrausch,  History  of  Germany. 

Lewis,  History  of  Germany. 

Haureau,  La  Scolastique. 

Montalembert,  Monks  of  the  West. 

Lacordaire,  Vie  de  St.  Dominic. 

Oliphant,  Life  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi. 

Lacroix,  Arts  of  the  Middle  Age. 

Symonds,  The  Eenaissance  in  Italy. 

Burckhardt,  The  Kenaissance  in  Italy. 

Taine,  Italy  and  the  Netherlands. 

Newman,  The  Idea  of  a  University. 

Maurice,  Mediaeval  Philosophy. 

Thornton,  History  of  Labor. 

Thorold  Rogers ,  History  of  Prices. 

Draper,  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe. 

Lecky,  History  of  Rationalism. 

Lecky,  History  of  European  Morals. 

Doniol,  Histoire  des  Classes  ouvri&res. 

Vizard,  Histoire  du  Travail. 

Levasseur,  Les  Classes  ouvrieres. 

Depping,  Histoire  du  Commerce  dans  le  Levant. 

Worn,  Histoire  de  la  Ligue  HansSatique. 

Camden  Society's  publications. 


A. 

Alaric,  23. 

Visigothic  king,  60. 
Albigensian  crusade,  355. 
Alcuin  as  a  teacher,  365. 
Alfred  of  England,  210. 
American  life,  historical  basis,  191. 
Anglo-Saxons,  whence  they   came, 
199. 

occupation  of  England,  201. 

organization  and  traits,  203. 
Antrustions,  72. 
Arabian  boundaries,  102. 

commerce,  103. 

philosophy,  382. 

religion,  105. 
Arian  Goths,  42. 

Arians,  toleration  of  Catholic  wor- 
ship, 45. 

Aristotle  and  the  schoolmen,  375. 
Army,  Roman,  in  time  of  Moham- 
med, 111. 

Assimilation  of  Roman  and  barba- 
rian ideaa,  192. 
Attila  and  Pope  Leo,  32. 

and  the  Huns,  262. 

B. 

Babylonian  captivity,  299. 
Barbarian  invasions,  42. 
Barbarians,  tribes,  23. 

classes  among,  44. 

education,  46. 


Barbarians,   equality  and   personal 
independence,  47. 

ideas  of  crime,  49. 
Battle  of  Poitiers,  77. 
Benedictine  rule,  337. 
Bishops,  mediaeval,  273. 

condemned  by  Popes,  274. 
Bond-laborers,  393. 
Bull,  Golden,  183. 
Byzantine  Empire,  107. 

C. 

Canon  law,  381. 
Canossa,  177. 
Capet,  the  family  of,  147. 
Champs  de  Mars,  76. 
Charlemagne,  family,  75. 

crowned  Emperor,  82. 

conquests,  86. 

King  of  the  Franks,  89. 

capitularies,  91. 

patron  of  learning,  93. 

hero  of  legend,  94. 

failure  of  his  system,  95,  120. 

founder   of   modern   Germany, 
96. 

extent  of  his  Empire,  129. 

theory  of  his  Empire,  83. 

degeneracy  of  his  race,  131. 

attitude    towards    the  Church, 

280. 

Chef-d'o3uvre,  402. 
Chivalry  as  a  moral  influence,  352. 
40  469 


470 


INDEX. 


Chivalry    unknown     in     antiquity, 

347. 

Christianity  before  Constantino,  28. 

influence  of  moral  precepts,  27. 

Church,  primitive   organization  of, 

29. 

after  Constantine,  55. 
under  the  Merovingians,  62. 
influence  of  its  unity  and  visi- 
bility, 271. 

ecclesiastical  punishments,  295. 
the  Babylonian  captivity,  299. 
the  great  schism,  300. 
Council  of  Constance,  301. 
relations  to  Roman  Empire,  31. 

to  nationalities,  35. 
reaction   against  its  authority, 

303. 

its  authority  in    science    over- 
thrown, 460. 
Cities  of  Asia  Minor,  their  wealth, 

427. 

Civil  and  canon  law,  study  of,  381. 
Clement  of  Ireland,  367. 
Clovis,  Roman  Consul,  52. 

baptism  of,  59. 
Collegia,  388. 
Commerce,    Italian    and    German, 

424. 

its  humanizing  influence,  435. 
fosters  religious  toleration,  436. 
and  modern  habits  of  life,  437. 
and  international  relations,  438. 
Concordat  of  Worms,  293. 
Condottieri,  326. 
Conflicts  of  Popes  with  sovereigns, 

292. 

Confreres,  405. 

Conversion  of  Northern  tribes,  65. 
Crusaders,  characteristics,  354. 
Crusades  affect  commerce,  427. 
against  the  Albigenses,  355. 


Crusades  in  Spain,  357. 

effect  on  feudal  system,  152. 


D. 

Discovery  of  America,  effect  upon 
commercial  policy,  459. 

Dominican  and  Franciscan  school- 
men, 384. 

E. 

Electors  of  the  Emperor,  183. 
Emperors,  German,  power  in  Rome, 

173. 

reformers  of  the  Papacy,  174. 
Empire,   Eastern,  condition  of,    in 

time  of  Mohammed,  107. 
England,  Roman  conquest  and  rule, 

193. 

Danish  invasions,  209. 
Christianity  introduced,  211. 
the    Church    becomes    Roman, 

213. 

Dunstan,  215. 
the  Norman  conquest,  218. 
feudal  system  under  the  Nor- 
man kings,  220. 
Archbishop  Langton,  224. 
King  John  and  Magna  Charta, 

224. 
responsibility   of   the   king  to 

the  nation,  204. 
King  Alfred,  209. 
William  the  Conqueror,  220. 
trial  by  jury,  221. 
John,   loss    of    Norman    prov- 
inces, 223. 

quarrel  with  the  Pope,  223. 
Henry  III.,  reign  of  favorites, 

226. 
the  Church  and  the  laity,  230. 


1XDEX. 


471 


England,  the  Church  the  refuge  of 

educated  men,  232. 
statutes  of  Provisort  and  Prx- 

niunire,  233. 
Black  Death,  242. 
villenage,  extinction  of,  246. 
the  parish,  240. 

population  in  Middle  Age,  242. 
education,  mediaeval,  360. 
Roman,  361. 
of  workmen,  401. 
Simon  de  Montfort,  227. 
rise  of  House  of  Commons,  227. 
Lanfranc,  228. 
Anselm  archbishop,  229. 
Norman     policy    towards    the 

Church,  229. 

policy  of  the  Church,  231. 
Dominicans    and    Franciscans, 

233. 

Wyclif  and  Lollardy,  234. 
Hundred- Years'  War,  235. 
Anglo-Norman  life,  237. 
the  towns  and  the  glides,  239. 
condition  of  the  people,  241. 
Edward    III.    sells    manumis- 
sions, 396. 

the  labor  question,  411. 
English  life,  historical  basis,  189. 

possessions  in  France,  235. 
Equality  among  the  barbarians,  47. 
Europe  after  Charlemagne's  death, 

129. 

Excommunication      and     interdict, 
294. 

F. 

Faust,  legend  of,  in  the  Middle  Age, 

460. 
Feudal  commendation,  139. 

power  to  resist  invasion,  144. 

system,  sketch  of,  135. 


Fiefs,  how  conferred,  137. 

characteristic  of,  143. 
Fixed  services,  394. 
France,  Capet,  Hugh,  king,  147. 

English  kings  feudal  lords  in, 
149. 

free  cities  in,  151. 

Hundred- Years'  War,  153. 

roturiers  become  nobles  in,  153. 

States-General,  154,  299. 

centralization,  155. 

absorption  of  fiefs,  156. 

natural  boundaries,  157. 
Franciscans,  life  of,  345. 
Frank-pledge,  404. 
Franks,  original  seat  of,  25. 

their  position  and  character,  58. 
Frederick  Barbarossa,  314. 
Frederick  II.  Emperor,  317. 
Free  towns,  political  system  in,  389. 

exactions  in,  406. 


G. 

German  tribes,  161. 

dynasties,  164. 

Germany,    development    of    feudal 
system  in,  159. 

primitive  characteristic*,  166. 

architecture,  168. 

roads,  169. 

when  first  a  true  nation,  308. 

Henry  of  Saxony,  163. 

feudal  independence,  165. 

free  cities,  167. 

their   kings  Roman  Emperon, 
170. 

Otho  the  Great  in  Italy,  171. 

relations    of    Emperon  to   tho 
Popes,  172. 

rule  of  Emperors  in  Italy,  175. 


472 


INDEX. 


Germany,  the  Investitures,  176,  289. 

Henry  IV.  and  Gregory  VII., 
177. 

Frederick  Barbarossa  and   the 
towns  in  Italy,  179. 

Electors  of  the  Emperor,  183. 

Council  of  Constance,  185. 

results  of  decentralization,  187. 

Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  187. 

Guelphs  and  Ghibelines,  316. 

Peasants'  War,  186. 
Gildes,  origin  of,  403. 

and  confreries,  397. 

H. 

Hanseatic  League,  429. 

its  origin  and  objects,  430. 

its  work,  431. 

and  Edward  III.,  433. 

its  final  dissolution,  434. 
Heraclius,  108. 
Heresies,  Christian,  109. 
Hermits   and    cenobites   in   Egypt, 

335. 

Hildebrand,  Gregory  VIL,  283. 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  theory  of,  83. 
Honor,  the  point  of,  351. 

I. 

Iconoclastic  dispute,  266. 
India,  civilization  of,  414. 
Indirect  influences  in  history,  333. 
Individualism  and  authority,  441. 
International    relations    and    com- 
merce, 439. 

Invaders,  permanent  occupation  of, 
23. 

number  of,  51. 

principles  of  government,  53. 
Invasions,  21. 

nature  of,  50. 


Inventions  and   maritime  discover- 
ies, 457. 

"  Investitures,"  the,  176,  289. 
Italian  cities,  traffic,  425. 
Italy,  sentiment  of  nationality  in, 

306. 

when  first  a  true  nation,  308. 
and  the  Lombards,  310. 
civil   power  of  the   Bishop  of 

Rome,  311. 

castles  and  city  walls  built,  313. 
Lombard  League,  315. 
city  republics,  319. 
tyrants    and    usurpers    in    the 

cities,  325. 

the  ideal  Italian  prince,  327. 
tyranny  and  culture  combined, 

329. 
invasion  by  Charles  VIII.  of 

France,  330. 

dynasties   at  the  close   of  the 
fifteenth  century,  331. 

J. 

Jeanne  d'Arc,  155. 
John  of  England,  149. 

K. 

Knights  employed  in  the  lay  service 
of  the  Church,  348. 

trained  by  the  Church,  349. 

the  point  of  honor,  351. 
Koran,  how  made  up,  118. 

L. 
Labor  in  antiquity,  387. 

question  in  England  and  France, 

410. 

La  Jacquerie,  409. 
Latin  language,  40. 
Le  droit  d'aubaine,  439. 


INDEX. 


473 


Life  in  the  later  Middle  Age,  455. 
Literature,    popular,    in    Germany 

and  Italy,  461. 
Lombard  League,  the,  315. 
Luxury    and   wealth    in    Flanders, 

455. 

M. 

Mayors  of  the  Palace,  74. 
Mediaeval  knight,  the,  347. 

society,  four  active  forces  in,  16. 

conception  of  life,  441. 
Medici,   how   they   employed    their 

riches,  464. 

Medicine,  study  of,  383. 
Merovingian  kingdom,  71. 
Middle  Age,  duration,  13. 

general  characteristics,  14. 

isolation  of  the  people,  417. 
Mohammed,  early  life,  112. 

doctrines,  religious  ideas,  113. 

not  an  impostor,  117. 

conversion  of  the  Arabs,  119. 

armed  propagandism,  121. 

conquests  of  his  followers,  123. 
Monasticism  not  confined  to  Chris- 
tian practice,  334. 

work    of    Benedictine    monks, 
339. 

N. 

National  policy  and  ambition,  447. 
wars  and  inediteval  ideas,  449. 
Nationalities  and  the  Church,  445. 
Nations  in  universities,  377. 
Northmen,  invasion,  145. 

P. 


Papal  rule,  its  predominance,  251. 

theory,  252. 

missionaries,  259. 
Patriarchates,  255. 
Peasant  proprietors  and  yeomen,  395. 

40* 


Peasants,   condition  of,   in  France, 

408, 409. 
Pepin,  crowned  king,  78. 

Patrician  of  Rome,  81. 
Persia  in  the  time  of  Mohammed, 

111. 

Philip  Augustus,  377. 
Philip    the  Good,   magnificence  of 

his  wedding,  456. 
Pilate,  superscription  on  the  cross, 

39. 
Pope,  supremacy  of  the,  257. 

position    in    the    later    Middle 

Age,  451. 

Popes  and  the  invasions,  261. 
greatness  of  the  early,  267. 
effect  of  their  rule,  269. 
growth    of    their    pretensions, 

275. 

as  Italian  princes,  450. 
decline  of  prestige   in  the  fif- 
teenth century,  446. 
alliance    with    the    Emperors, 

effects  of,  277. 

disputes   with   different   sover- 
eigns, 294. 

relations  with  barbarians,  263. 
Prosperity  of  Italian  cities,  453. 

R. 

Realists  and  Nominalists,  374. 
Riches,  increase  of,  as  affecting  the 

Church's  power,  453. 
Roman  and  Christian  ideas,  26. 

Empiie,  Western,  date  of  ex- 
tinction, 13. 

civilization,  elements  of,  16. 

Empire,  limits,  18. 

Empire,  prosperity,  19. 

cities  in  Gaul,  20. 

materialism,  27. 

administration,  34. 


474 


INDEX. 


Roman  rule  of  the  provinces,  37. 

municipla,  37,  38. 

army  in   time   of  Mohammed, 

111. 
Rome,  recognition  of  Pope  of,  56. 

commerce  and  Roman  civiliza- 
tion, 416. 

commerce,  routes  to  the  East, 
421. 

S. 

St.  Ambrose,  32. 
St.  Aiiskar,  68. 

St.  Augustine's  theory,  264,  285. 
St.  Benedict,  337. 
St.  Bernard,  349. 
St.  Boniface,  68. 
St.  Columban  and  St.  Gall,  66. 
St.  Dominic,  342.  , 

St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  343. 
Saracenic  and  Christian  civilization 
contrasted,  418. 

invasions,  99. 
Saracens,  commerce  and  civilization 

of  the,  419. 
Saxon  Heptarchy,  208. 
Scholasticism,  371. 
Schools,  Imperial  organization,  361. 

cathedral  and  monastic,  363. 

influence  of  the  palace,  369. 
Science  and  the  Church,  442. 
Secularization  of  ideas,  444. 
Self-made  men  in  antiquity,  386. 
Serfs  and  villeins,  143. 
Simony  and  a  married  clergy,  284. 
Slavery  and  the  invasions,  390. 

economic   motives  in  its  aboli- 
tion, 395. 

Slaves  in  Rome,  389. 
Statute  of  Laborers,  397. 


Swabia,  revolt  of,  184. 
Switzerland,  revolt  of,  184. 

T. 

Taille  and  hauban,  408. 
Teutonic  tribes,  25. 

ideas,  53. 

Theodosius,  penance  of,  32. 
Thierry,  description  of  the  life  of 

the  Frankish  kings,  73. 
Towns,  freedom  of,  151. 
Trade,  monopoly  in  towns,  400. 
Transition  from  slavery  to  serfdom, 

393. 

U. 

Ulphilas  and  the  Goths,  45. 

Univeraals,  374. 

University  organization,  377. 

of  Paris,  and  its  power,  379. 

of  Bologna,  380. 

Usury   condemned   by  the  Church, 
435. 

V. 

Vandals,  23. 

Venice,  commercial  policy,  426. 
Verdun,  treaty  of,  133. 
Village  communities,  43. 
Visigoths,  23. 

W. 

War  of  Investitures,  287. 

Weregeld,  49. 

Workmen,  education  of,  401. 

in  towns,  396. 
World-monarchy  and  world-religion, 

278. 

Worldliness  and  luxury,  453. 
Wyclif,  234. 


THE   END. 


